By Demetrius Dillard
As is already known, Black media consumership has declined significantly over the past five decades concurrent with the gradual downward slump of the journalism industry.
In the midst of an ever-devolving Black media landscape, perhaps there is an ounce of hope with the upcoming launch of a potential game-changer for Black America.
The “Black News Channel” (BNC), set to launch on Feb. 10 at 6 a.m., will be a unique multi-platform channel designed specifically for Black Americans and promises to provide its viewers with relevant news, information, and educational content focused on their interests and needs, “while tapping into subscription television’s most profitable market.”
The launch of the 24-hour national cable news channel comes after more than 15 years of planning and securing investors. A number of promotional appearances had the BNC set to be stationed in various cities ranging from California to New York, in addition to the possibility of being housed in Florida A&M University’s School of Journalism & Graphic Communication. Recently, it has been confirmed that the network will broadcast from a renovated 20,000-square foot office building off Killearn Center Boulevard in Tallahassee, Florida.
Former U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts is the mastermind and visionary behind the Black News Channel. He serves as the chairman of the BNC, and Tallahassee resident and veteran television manager Bob Brillante has been named the CEO.
Though several members of BNC’s executive team are White men, the network will fill an important void for the Black community. According to BNC, Americans begin the new year with no Black-owned full-power TV stations. In 2008, there were 18 Black-owned and operated full-power TV stations, representing just 1.3 percent of all TV licenses. But today, all 18 stations are gone.
Come Feb. 10, BNC programming will be distributed to an estimated 33 million households in the nation’s top Black consumer markets, potentially solidifying its place as theoretically the most powerful Black media platform in the 21st century.
“Black News Channel’s purpose is to be a news organization that gives voice to the varied experiences, issues, points-of-view and priorities that matter to African Americans. BNC will not just tell a story, but the network will tell the entire story,” says a BNC webpage.
“The network will empower the black community and address the issues of the day in a way that is fresh, bright, and complete. BNC will offer real, responsive, reliable and relevant news coverage by and for African Americans.”
In addition, the company says it differs from mainstream networks of CNN, FOX News, CBS and MSNBC as the only television platform with news programming gathered, written and produced by and for Black people. The BNC has pledged to provide coverage of events and activities of specific interest and cultural significance to Black Americans – ranging from sports, to politics, to religion, to the entertainment and the arts, and so forth.
Moreover, the BNC will air weekly sports programs, various studio shows, talk shows and feature programming, and has employed some of the nation’s most talented and proficient Black TV anchors, journalists, finance experts, engineers, executives and research analysts.
Shahid “Shad” Khan, owner of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars, is a billionaire businessman and majority investor in the network, which will have projections of roughly 75 million viewers, including smartphone users.
In an interview with Multichannel News, Watts said the BNC is a brand that will be culturally specific to the Black community.
“When you look at the landscape on linear television and even on the digital platforms, there’s very little news, information, educational and inspirational content that is culturally specific to us,” Watts said in the interview.
“The news channels today disproportionately talk about crime, athletics and entertainment more than news pertaining to us culturally. So that is our brand, and we say while those other things exist, there’s more to the black community than what’s on the linear and digital platforms.”
Furthermore, BNC’s partnership with Historical Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) and development of its state-of-the-art news headquarters and media training center will “enable the network to train the upcoming generation of aspiring journalists in advanced newsgathering and production technologies.”
As Watts iterated, the constant vilification of the Black community by some mainstream media outlets shows the abundant need for such a platform as the BNC.
Watts, an Oklahoma native who went on to author several books and found J.C. Watts Companies, said the desire for a Black news service has grown over the past decade or so.
“There’s nothing that would encourage us to believe by any stretch of the imagination that the service is not desired by the community,” he said.
“We already have carriage today with Charter, Comcast and Dish, and we’ll have our digital deals in place that give us an opportunity with the carriage and the capital to sustain where we need to be going forward.”
The network will join a number of imperative Black newspapers and magazines that already give Black Americans a voice.
Since the publication of the Freedom’s Journal nearly 200 years ago, the nation has witnessed how critically important Black media ownership and consumption is, and the establishment of the Black News Channel not only provides its target audience with a long-awaited and much-needed platform, but gives Black America’s future leaders hope, ambition and inspiration.
Learn more about the BNC, the network promising to deliver “truth illuminated,” by visiting https://blacknewschannel.com/.
