Study finds that "True Blood" contains almost eight percent of TV's gay characters

Well, okay, that wasn't explicitly stated in the report, but the numbers are there and it's a fact. (As unbelievable as it sounds.) GLAAD's fifteenth annual "Where Are We On TV" report was just released, and the group found that the number of gay characters on television is on the rise. (You might think it's always on the rise, but actually, a few years ago it dropped pretty sharply.)

So what do the numbers look like? There are twenty-three LGBT characters on the broadcast networks. (I guess that means they didn't count every character on Glee, but don't you feel like they could have?) There are fifty-three LGBT characters on cable programming. For those of you who don't want to add numbers in your head, that makes seventy-six all told. Not bad!

But here's the thing: the show with the most LGBT characters is True Blood, with a total of six. And if you do the math, that's 7.8% of total LGBT characters! I recognize that with such a small total number, every single character already counts for more than a single percent, but that's still so high. Snaps for you, True Blood. (Though I wonder if they count Eric in that number? Yes, I know what's happening in that picture, but he might be a contentious one.)

Anything else of note? Oh, yeah — these are still mostly white men. Television: it's where the representation problems are.