THE ARTS ON TV

A new report released last week by the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University measured arts coverage on American television networks – on ABC, CBS and NBC – during the decade of the 1990s. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t much. “According to the findings, on an average day, viewers receive 30 seconds of information on the arts. That’s 3 percent of the weekday news agenda. Annual arts coverage on all three networks dropped from about 500 minutes in 1990 to 300 minutes in 1999.” – Houston Chronicle