An ethnically diverse coalition is looking to launch Canadian TV networks into multicolor, with key backing from the major U.S. networks.

Productions without Border, headed up by Canwest Broadcasting drama production exec Karen King-Chigbo, aims to open doors in the Canadian TV for promising minority talent by issuing an annual Diversity Industry Report on how broadcasters are achieving racial diversity.

Here’s the zinger: ‘Diversity has become an opportunity, and no longer a challenge,’ King-Chigbo said Tuesday night while hosting an inaugural PWB gathering in Toronto.

With ethnic audiences now making up nearly half of total TV viewership in ad-rich markets like Toronto and Vancouver, fostering racial and ethnic diversity will help networks and advertisers connect with a TV audience they risk losing if Canadian primetime remains a sea of white faces.

And greater onscreen diversity will only come, King-Chigbo adds, when the industry helps hire and retain minority talent both on- and off-screen.

The key is hiring ethnically diverse TV writers, producers and directors, because waiting until casting to encourage on-screen diversity is too late.

That lesson was learned by Kelly Edwards, vice president of talent development and diversity at NBC Universal, whose studio two years ago noticed studio series shot in Canada had too few non-white faces that advertisers and pressure groups back home demanded.

‘We went up, we did our thing, and didn’t connect with communities back home,’ Edwards explained.

So NBCU talent scouts will return to Toronto this week, and go next month to Vancouver, to hold open casting calls for ethnically diverse actors, especially from the east Indian, African American, First Nations, Asian and Latino communities, for local movie and TV series, including Psych and Eureka.

‘If you’re not speaking to your audience, you’re losing your audience,’ Edwards warned.

‘For us, it’s good business’ bringing more ethnic balance into TV, whatever the production challenges, added Tiffany Smith-Anoa’I, vice president of diversity and communications at CBS.

Local talent from visible minorities also hope the new Canadian TV watchdog effort will generate networking and work opportunities with partner studios in Hollywood.

‘The next level is really going to the U.S.,’ Jennifer Holness, who runs Toronto-based Hungry Eyes Film & Television with partner Sudz Sutherland, said as she mixed Wednesday night with the U.S. studio execs.