Oh, get over it - we don't hear the same outcries from people over multiple networks for women, for kids, for Hispanics, for NASCAR lovers, for golfers, for tennis players, for football fans, and toward every other ethnic, interest, and activity group ad infinitum. There is a small segment out there that can be reached with a network formatted in toward them; someone who has the wherewithall and money in hand would be foolish to ignore it.
I've got a unique viewpoint of this one.
I met Al Liggins years ago when his Radio One group looked at buying the station where I was working at the time. He was groomed by his mother, Kathy Hughes to take over the radio stations years ago. Her start came from a single station owned by her late husband Dewey Hughes in Washington, DC, and has expanded into one of the larger "second tier" radio groups in the nation.
The two of them are a formidable pair; not the most likeable people in the world, but I have to respect their collective business accumen.
TV One (like MBC before it) is trying to go after BET's niche, and if they can provide what the mainstream black audience wants (i.e., REAL content - news, sports and other balanced programming - as opposed to music videos ad nauseum day in and day out), they've truly got a chance. The larger problem is that the perception of everyone else in America (read many people here on FR and elsewhere) is that it is "racist" to narrowcast programming in television as is done in radio to great success.
I say that if the dollars are out there, then why not?
Moreover, as opposed to turning up our collective noses, a better tact for us to take is to figure out how to use this new vehicle ourselves. How better to reach mainstream black America than with a medium that black America watches (or listens to for that matter)?
Oh, but I forgot. Some of you think that any attempt to talk to black America on their own turf is pandering, and many others feel that the attempt is worthless because blacks have continued to vote en masse for the Democrats for more than two generations. How silly of me to believe that we can make inroads in an area that has traditionally been "off limits" to us. I don't know what must have gotten into me.
I'll go back to eating my Oreos now.
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LOL!! Good post Mhking.
BUMP! BUMP! BUMP! BUMP!!!!!