The sun sets on the Black Family Channel
April 24th, 2007 Posted in Uncategorized
(multichannel.com) Atlanta-based Black Family Channel is expected to end its run as a 24-hour channel once talks with Gospel Music Channel are finalized later this week.
The two parties are negotiating a deal in which BFC will yield its 16 million subscribers to 10 million-subscriber Gospel, along with its blessings, effectively ending its run as a linear cable channel as of April 30.
But BFC executives said the network will “not shut down operations,†although it’s unclear in what capacity it will exist.
[…]
Despite its star power and its unique positioning — along with BET and TV One — as a national network targeting African-American audiences, BFC was unable to secure significant cable and satellite distribution to continue to fund the network, according to sources, thus leading to the Gospel negotiations. (more…)
Interesting on many levels.
April 24th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
When Robert Johnson was partners with the white media mogul whose name escapes me, they, essentially, blocked other cable companies from picking up MBC, now the Black Family Channel, now?????
It was a classic power move. TV One works because Radio One partnered with COMCAST.
April 24th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
The only parties responsible for BFC’s difficulties in securing cable/DBS carriage were the cable & dish operators themselves. While it’s true BET benefitted greatly from John Malone’s involvement, there is no financial upside for most cable system operators to carry multiple Af-Am niche channels minus control over said channels’ content and/or revenues, a la Comcast and TVOne.
IMO, BFC’s business model was never sound. Neither is TVOne’s, FWIW. However, its financing by Comcast enables the latter to leverage the boutique channel against BET (and its owner, Viacom). There are at least 2-3 other Af-Am themed TV networks I know of in existence, but the economics of the cable TV industry makes their prospects for carriage similarly dim. Perhaps BFC and the others will use this setback as an opportunity recruit and/or cultivate some talented and energetic executives from within their target demographic who’ll establish a viable plan. Good intentions alone aren’t enough to ensure success in business.
April 25th, 2007 at 12:18 am
You know, I had several thoughts on this one:
–While it is true that TV One has backing by Comcast, BET did not have such luxury in the early days, yet it did pretty well on its own (you can probably attribute that to the fact that they were the first national Black network).
–The “family” genre for television can be very tough
Remember PAX TV (now known as ION TV)? PAX was also billed as a family channel, but it basically fell flat. For them, family programing meant old reruns of The Waltons, Dr. Quinn–Medicine woman??? and other similar shows.
–The reason why I think that the family genre can be difficult is because each family defines “family” programing very differently. While I can appreciate the wholesomeness of a Walton’s-type show, it will get no play in our household. Our “family” programing is made up of a collage of programs from different networks.
–Compared to BET back in the day, I wonder if there was a significant amount of cable/sat subscribers who requested the Black Family Channel.
–A valiant effort.
April 25th, 2007 at 6:28 am
it’s sad this is the first time i’ve heard of this channel and it’s on its way out…
but yeah, “family” programming is tough. i just ran across ION the other day, and i couldn’t even figure out what it had replaced (thanks, Duane). AND i couldn’t figure out what kind of network it was between the religious programming, the “paid” programming, and the re-runs of Amen.
April 25th, 2007 at 9:15 am
A company called Liberty Media (nee TCI) — a major media conglomerate headed by John Malone — staked the original investment in BET and at one time was its majority owner. HBO was also one of BET’s original backers. In many ways, TVOne’s deal with Comcast is identical with the exception BET had more programming and operational autonomy. I suspect those relationships were products of the cable industry’s economics during the early 80s.
ION is PAX renamed and reformatted from ‘Christian lite’ (my description) and informercial programming to a more ’secular’ format featuring sports (mixed martial arts), drama, and science fiction. IMO, it was the heavy amount of informercials aired under the old format that alienated viewers. ION’s new boss (Bud Paxson left the company as part of an agreement with NBC Universal) has announced ION will be a format for indie TV producers seeking a national platform.