NBC Nightly News kicked off its week-long series on black women last night with “African-American Women: Where They Stand,” which looked at the dramatic gap in education between black women and black men.

The show highlighted statistics that show nearly two-thirds of African-American undergraduates are women, and at black colleges, the ratio of women to men is seven to one. This gap has helped create a significant difference in the number of businesses owned by black women, versus those owned by black men.

For most black women, this isn’t new information.

“I’m glad they are focusing on black women, and certainly, it verifies things some of us already knew,” said Judi Moore Latta, a professor of Radio, Television and Films at Howard University. Latta said perhaps the series will help those “who don’t believe something is true until it’s on television.”

“We’ve been saying as a joke, ‘We are out of men.’ But it’s not a joke any more,” Latta told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Junette Pinkney, a former television network producer who lives in Charlotte, N.C., knew she couldn’t expect much of a story, she told BlackAmericaWeb.com, since TV news can only dedicate a couple of minutes or so to a story. Still, said Pinkney, “This is a story that has been recycled. I’m sure the statistics were updated, but I remember seeing the same show some 20 years ago.”

Like Latta, Pinkney was nevertheless thankful to see the issues on the evening news.

“It’s not often that there is a real focus on African-American women,” she said.

Yvonne B. Noisette, a program leader in the continuing education division of Trident Technical College in Charleston, S.C., was also disappointed that she didn’t see anything new on last night’s segment.

“No surprises. What they presented is something you hear all the time,” Noisette told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “It’s known in the community.”

Noisette was hoping to hear more analysis and possible commentary on the reasons for the differences.

“I am the mother of a black boy, and the statistics are against him making it,” she said. “I know boys are a little more rambunctious in school, versus girls, who are more calmer. But why are our males having such a more difficult time than our girls?”

For days before the series began, the Internet was flooded with emails as brothers and sisters across the country notified each other of the upcoming show.

“It’s been amazing,” said Latta. “I’ve gotten emails from organizations I belong to, from friends and students, alumni members and church members.”

Amber Payne, a producer for the series, said Mark Whitaker, former editor of Newsweek, “brought it to our attention that Newsweek did an issue on the subject. It wasn’t our attention to duplicate that, but to look at how these numbers had changed, what we can update, what new we can say.”

As editor of Newsweek, Whitaker was the first black editor of a major news magazine. Payne said Whitaker and Lyne Pitts (who is also black), “who works a lot on our diversity initiative, worked with the senior news staff on the project, starting a about a month ago.

Rehema Ellis, the only black female news correspondent on NBC, is the lead reporter on the series and the person who hosted the initial piece that was shown Monday night. On the NBC News blog, Ellis quoted Angela Burt-Murray, editor-in-chief of Essence magazine, who said, “Researchers will tell you that the trends you see in the African-American community really are the precursor to what is going to happen in the general population."

Ellis writes: “All the more reason to pay attention to what's happening to black women and men and to understand that their story is not just an African-American story. Far from it. This is an American story deserving everyone's concern.”

The series continues Tuesday night with Ellis looking at black women and relationships. On Wednesday, it offers a glimpse at the high mortality rates among black women. Thursday’s feature wonders whether race will trump gender or gender trump race in next year's presidential election. And the last installation, airing Friday, examines other frightening health statistics impacting black women.

The viewers interviewed for this story told BlackAmericaWeb.com they will continue watching, though they still wish for a more comprehensive analysis of the issues.

Latta says every day that she teaches at Howard, she sees the gender gap in education. “I look at my class, and it verifies what they said. It’s about seven-to-one females to males. There are reasons this is true. The reasons are much deeper than anything that could be explored in three minutes. There are historical and institutional reasons that need to be explored.”

The series made Noisette recall a conversation she had last week with a niece and nephew over the Thanksgiving holidays.

“They were raised in same household, the father not really there. My nephew spent five years in prison," Noisette told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "I asked him if there was anything any one of us could have done to have stopped him from going. He said, ‘Nothing.’ He said, ‘I think I was caught up in the crowd.'"

Noisette longs for a series to tell her why.

“I look at our males," she said. "They are caught up in the prison system. What is it about our black males, versus our females, that means our males can’t make it?”