I wish TV One much success.
I wish TV One were available here.
New black cable channel debuts on Martin Luther King Day
STEPHEN MANNING, AP Business Writer
Saturday, January 17, 2004
©2004 Associated Press
(01-17) 10:18 PST LANHAM, Md. (AP) --
There may be hundreds of channels on cable television, but Johnathan Rodgers says there's still something missing for black viewers.
Sure, there are networks for men, women, animal lovers, game show fans and even people nostalgic for old soap operas. But what typical black viewers don't see, said the president of a new network geared toward blacks, is many people who look like them.
"If you want to see a makeover show where your hair and skin happens to be a different texture or color, what do you watch? If you want to see a horror movie where the first person killed isn't black, where do you go?" Rodgers asks.
The answer, he hopes, is the upstart TV One network, debuting on Martin Luther King Day in several metropolitan markets across the country.
With a mixture of lifestyle shows, documentaries and reruns of old sitcoms and dramas, TV One hopes to woo an audience that Rodgers says is starved for black-oriented programming.
TV One and its corporate backers, Comcast Corp. and urban radio company Radio One, are taking on the dominant and largely unchallenged leader of the urban television market -- Viacom's BET.
TV One claims it targets a different demographic, saying it will go for viewers aged 24 to 54 who might not be interested in the hip-hop and other youth-oriented programming on BET.
However, industry analysts say the two will likely compete for viewers and advertising money, although they note that on cable systems with so many different choices, there is probably enough room for both.
"There should be more than two cable channels that aggressively target African-Americans in a universe of more 200 channels," said Jason Helfstein, a media analyst with CIBC World Markets Corp.
