 I'm Colin Daniels, I'm digital editor here at Ad Weekend. Today we have Craig Robertson of NBC and we're gonna be talking about diversity, LGBT inclusion and how we can best support the community. Craig, thank you so much for joining us today. Oh, thank you Colin, really appreciate the invitation. Can you explain to your role at NBC and what all you do? My official title is Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer for NBC Universal. I get to work across the entire company, including Telemundo, our film, our television businesses to help make sure that we are fostering a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion, working with those business leaders to drive progress in their workforce to make sure that our content is speaking to an increasingly diverse domestic and global audience. Touching on the diversity and inclusion, I feel like no matter what one of your guys says that channels that you look to, you can always see various color representation, ethnicity along with LGBT representation, that such a cool aspect that a few networks, a lot of them can't do, but you guys just so organically do that. I would agree with you, and I think that comes from a couple different places. The company, going back over a hundred years, has a really unusual and groundbreaking sort of approach to diversity, equity and inclusion. We had Nat King Cole, the iconic singer and Christmas song, Chestnuts Roasting in an Open Fire. We had a primetime television show with him in 1956. Same time, same station. See you later. In that same year, he was doing a live show and was attacked by a white mob on stage. We knew that we had to start as a company looking like a country. Then if we take a look at LGBTQ, as you described, the first kiss between women was on, our network in the 90s, the first lesbian wedding was on, our show in the 90s, Will and Grace in 1998. And what seems sort of prosaic and normal now was controversial then, something that we are very much trying to do and we know there is certainly work to be done and that is this concept of something you alluded to, of casual inclusion. For so long, characters, whether they were black characters or Hispanic characters or LGBTQ characters or characters who were wheelchair users, the entire reason for their character revolved around that aspect when really in the outside world, you meet people who are multi-dimensional, who happen to use a wheelchair or who happen to be black. People fell in love with Jack as a character, so someone who may have had a negative feeling about people who are members of the community saw him and liked him and learned to love him and as facile as it sounds, it actually helps change people's perceptions. And you are far too young to remember this television show. Way, way too young, but somebody in your family will remember your parents or your grandparents and that is the show Julia. If you talk to anybody of a certain age in the black community, they will remember gathering around the television with their families to watch Julia because they were so proud to see themselves portrayed in that way much the way the LGBTQ community embraced Will and Grace and much as we hope and know they are going to embrace our upcoming reboot of queer as folk. It goes so far to helping people of any age realize that they are not alone and that there is life for you. When doing shows and creating like reboots like queer or spoken stuff, is there like a specific way that you guys kind of bring in the opinions of those in the community that would work for the company to kind of give their opinion, be like, okay, like this is something that we can relate to or these are some questions that I might have? These shows are very often almost always created by people who are members of the community. So they don't need a great deal of guidance. They're writing about their truth and we have a very, very large, very large and robust LGBTQ employee resource group and we selectively use the group oftentimes to sort of get their thoughts on some of the shows that we have coming out. But I have to tell you because the creators themselves are so diverse, they're getting it right. On the topic of Outer NBC Universal, I have to say that we were the first LGBTQ group to march under an identifying banner in the New York St. Patrick's Day parade in 2050. It made global headlines and it opened the door for other groups that have been trying to march for literally decades to then march the next year under identifying banner. What the organizers kept saying is, well, members of the community have been able to march forever. We've had LGBTQ people marching and we said, yes, but they couldn't say they were. There's a difference. Having that distinction and having so many of our senior leaders march with us is still one of the things that when I'm on the old-end grayer that I will sit back and look back and think as really a defining moment for the company and for our community. I know we touched on a little bit like Queer's Folk that reboot. Are there any other shows or any other initiatives that you all are working on that are coming up that we can all look forward to? On the film side, we have an upcoming release called Bros. And it is the first romantic comedy from a major studio that is about two gay men and their relationship. It's the first major studio film where every principal actor, whether they're playing a character who's a member of the community or not, is a member of the community. 10 years from now, we'll be talking about that and it'll sound quaint. But again, today it's rather groundbreaking. And are there any company initiatives that you guys do internally to celebrate diversity and inclusion, whether that's LGBT or through race and ethnicity? Like a lot of companies, we honor heritage months. One of the things that we decided this year was to take the month aspect out of it. We're not going to ignore it or put more emphasis in the month that is designated. We know the genesis of pride, but we shouldn't have to wait until June to talk about the importance of LGBTQ rights and freedoms. I believe we're still the only major news organization that has verticals on our digital platform, NBCNews.com. We have NBC Out, NBC Latino, BLK and Asian America. Those four verticals that I mentioned get literally millions of views is because they're part of the larger NBCNews.com and they rotate some of their primary stories on the homepage. So we're really using the power of the entire company to bring more eyeballs to stories that other people aren't even covering or many other people would not have normally seen. And my final question is if I'm a company or somebody who's like, I want to bring in that, I want to find what advice would you have for them who are trying to make an effort or who are now realizing after watching this, where it's like, oh, I'm not making an effort. Like what advice would you give them to try to seek that out? I am guessing that you have the resources right in your own company that you have probably not spoken to. Find someone in your company at whatever level and say, I realize, I know that I need to expand my list of contacts. How can you help me? What organizations do I not know about? Because there are organizations out there that will help connect them. But you just have to ask for the help. And I guarantee you that in any organization, there's somebody who is either involved through their own work, volunteering through, through their church, through their temple, through some other group who can connect them with people who can be helpful to being more effective, more diverse storytellers. Thank you so much, Craig, for taking the time to talk with us and interview people. Absolutely, thank you. Always a pleasure.