By Pam Cole

"I'm gay," a breathless Ellen DeGeneres told the world in 1997, outing her character and herself in a now iconic episode of her popular, four-year comedy series, Ellen. That pronouncement (which effectively ended her sitcom career while launching her on a jagged path of gay rights activism, HBO specials, award show-hosting gigs, and then back into television replacing Rosie as the token lesbian talk-show host), blew open the closet doors that network executives had kept nailed shut for decades. It marks the beginning of gay television.

But here in 2006, it seems television has taken two steps forward and one step back in reaching out to gay audiences. With this year's demise of the signature (and highly acclaimed) NBC show, Will and Grace, network television is acting like it's done its share of appeasing the gay community. (Add to that the recent cable loss of Queer as Folk and Six Feet Under, and you can practically hear the bell toll for gay audiences.)

In a recent statement, GLAAD estimated that LGBT characters represent less than 2% of all characters on broadcast networks--that's nine years after Ellen came out. And in the "truth is stranger than fiction" category, GLAAD said that reality shows included more gay cast members than scripted programming. (Possibly because in real life, more than 2% of the population is gay!)

Let's do a little post-mortem:

• Will and Grace - debuted in 1998, stepping directly into the footprints left by DeGeneres upon her exit. Eight years later the show is ending, after 15 Emmys and thousands of really bad gay jokes that straight people loved. Lesbians? Hmmm… I didn't watch it enough to know. Network television's only successful foray into (pseudo) gay storylines. There were a few other feeble attempts to cash in on the queer cachet created by Will and Grace (Normal, Ohio starring John Goodman and Some of My Best Friends with Jason Bateman) that all failed within a few episodes.

• Queer as Folk - five years and 83 episodes of the first and most explicit gay male sex ever seen on American television. Way too hot for network television, but just right for cable. The cast also included a gorgeous, hot lesbian couple who were constantly dealing with issues of parenting and infidelity. Not surprisingly, the show was never nominated for any major awards, though it collected plenty from the LGBT tribe.

• Six Feet Under - five years and 63 episodes featuring a quirky family of morticians. Central characters included a bi-racial gay male couple that made this a favorite with gay audiences. The fourth season gratuitously included a lesbian character played by Mena Suvari, but she was quickly gone. Executive-produced and written by the Academy award winner and openly-gay Alan Ball (American Beauty), who is also a proud native of Marietta, Georgia (like me and Julia Roberts-that's what I like about the south!). This HBO series (thank God for cable) won numerous Emmys and Golden Globes in its run.

All these endings leave us with:

• The L Word - faltering, but now in its fourth season, since there's nothing else even remotely like this on television for lesbians.

• Ellen - the talk show hosted by Ellen DeGeneres. She presents a daily image of a normal, likable lesbian to America without ever mentioning her lesbianism. It's an easily digestible and palatable entrée for the conservative country. But it's oh so bland to the LGBT audience.

• Rosie O'Donnell on The View - coming this September, the dethroned "Queen of Nice" returns to television in the morning news dish for stay-at-home moms (and out-of-work writers, like me). This is an interesting twist and controversy has already risen between Rosie and Starr Jones, the show's token African American, weight-loss success story. I guarantee that no one will accuse Rosie of being too nice on this show. Watch this one closely.

• South of Nowhere - the story of two female high school students explore their friendship and feelings for each other on The N network. This cable channel also brazenly features other young gay characters on its show DeGrassi: The Next Generation. Nice if you're under 20. Would have been nice when I was under 20, too.

• 16 minor gay characters with meaningless one-line anecdotes scattered across the six major broadcast networks (13 gay male characters and three lesbians--come on, ladies!).

But--here's one step forward. Just in the last year, entire networks featuring programming specifically for LGBT audiences have launched: Logo, here!, and Q Television. These are all cable programs, with limited availability based on politics and money. Still, if you live in the right part of the country and can afford cable, you can switch to Logo any time of the day or night and see LGBT programming of varying quality. Amazing!

Today we have broadcast network television, which is free for the masses; then, for fees ranging from small to outrageous, you can get cable, On Demand, and a burgeoning array of Internet programming (the airwaves of the future, to which gay media entrepreneurs are glomming). Not surprisingly, LGBT-themed shows are more welcomed in the pay-for-view venues, somewhat shielded from those freeloading masses.

Does this mean that the networks will now abandon their inclusion of gay characters and storylines and leave that task to upstart gay channels? Are network executives satisfied to lose that 10% of their audience to avoid offending the other 90%? It's kinda like what happened to the African American community of viewers. After a run of sitcoms revolving around the middle-class African American family (Fresh Prince, Cosby, Martin, and others), African American producers have claimed their share of the airwaves with networks like the Black Family Channel headed by Robert Townsend, The Black Hip Hop Television, BET, and Black Gospel TV. It seems gay audiences can look forward to the same path. The need for 24-hour-a-day programming on multiple LGBT channels creates a tremendous opportunity for our storytellers and filmmakers. But, we've got to get used to telling those stories instead of hiding them. The void of quality content is already apparent on Logo in its first year.

Commander in Chief

And another thing…..Am I the only one devastated by the news that ABC is ditching Geena Davis as the sexiest onscreen president of all time? Get your lazy Internet fingers working and send an e-mail to those oh-so-smart network executives at ABC who are preparing to cancel Commander in Chief. Just as Davis received yet another award from for her portrayal as President MacKenzie Allen (from The White House Project--a nonprofit organization that promotes women's voting, political participation, and leadership), ABC announced that it would not air the series for the rest of the May sweeps time period. Never mind that Davis also won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Drama Series earlier this year. During sweeps, Commander in Chief, which has suffered declining ratings in its tenure, will be replaced by yet MORE episodes of the newsmagazine Primetime. Oh, goodie.

What kind of coincidence is it that a bright, entertaining, and groundbreaking show that features a positive portrayal of a woman as president would be cancelled in this time of conservative political turmoil? Is it possible that network executives are nervous about the prospect that audiences might actually come to like and accept the idea of a woman president? Or perhaps behind-the-scenes Republicans are nervous about it, given the growing hype about Hillary Clinton running for president in '08.

Yes, Commander in Chief suffered a ratings slump since its stellar start when it debuted with 17 million viewers, but come on! The show's time slot was changed to air opposite American Idol (the undisputed competition killer), the director was replaced - twice - and then poof! It went completely off the air for three months!

I loved the show and couldn't keep up with its air times. Sounds like a network conspiracy to me.

There's still time to vote for Geena Davis as Commander in Chief. It's your civic duty as a woman and a television viewer. http://abc.go.com/site/contactus.html