With Black News Channel pushing its launch back a second time recently, from Jan 6 to Feb 10, we went straight to chmn/co-founder and former Congressman J.C. Watts to find out more about the delays and what’s ahead for the fledgling network. An edited excerpt follows. The channel has been in the making for more than a decade. You’re so close to launch. These delays have had to be frustrating. What’s going on? They are frustrating; however, you keep reminding yourself you want to do it right as opposed to doing it fast. We’ve waited 10+ years, so we can wait another 30 or 40 days. We’ve had everything from backordered equipment to trying to get signals to distributors the right way, and trying to get the right personnel. I’ve gotten to know [Urban One founder and chair] Cathy Hughes over the last 20 years. I held her to high esteem before we started this, and she’s held to even higher esteem today because of the way she’s done it. The way [BET cofounder] Bob Johnson did it. You just have a greater appreciation for them once you’ve walked in their shoes. Is it primarily getting to the point where distributors can get a clear signal? That’s part of it. That’s key, getting a clean signal. But also having redundancy, having a back-up. You don’t want just a primary route. Beyond the launch delays, why do you think it has taken so long for such a network to come into being? In newspapers’ heydays, most large cities with significant African American populations had a newspaper serving that audience. Why hasn’t it been the same for TV? I think news is a little more expensive to do than entertainment. You have to ask the honest question, will the marketplace accept us. We found out 10-12 years ago that there was an intensity level for culturally specific news for the African American community, and today it’s more intense than it was then. You can look at CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, and see the resurgence of news. You look at the 200 stations that are there, there’s nothing for the African American community that is informational or educational in the lineup. The marketplace is ready for us, but you’ve got to have two things—distribution and capital. At different times along the way we had distribution, but didn’t have capital. And we had capital, but didn’t have distribution. A little over a year ago, we had distribution and capital that reconciled. Distribution has been somewhat challenging, trying to get the right players to the table. Once Charter agreed to carry us, it put us on the clock and actually made us real. With distribution deals in place with Charter and Comcast, are there others you’re making progress with? We are. Meeting with advertisers early on, we immediately discovered we’ve got to be where the marketplace is. We will be digital, streaming, OTT, all of the digital platforms, linear, satellite. About 98% of African American Millennials have cell phones and about 68% get their news and information from their device. You’ve got to be where your market is, and being on those devices makes a big difference. You look around this week at some of the top stories on CNN, The Washington Post, etc, and they have impeachment, the Royal Family, LSU winning the College Football Championship. What would be the top news stories at BNC? We would maybe cover the same thing, but we would just want African Americans talking about it because I think they might have some unique tweaks that I think could help create perspective. Usually when you see someone like me or Donna Brazile or any other African American who might be on TV talking about current affairs, we’re not talking about it in a way that’s culturally specific to the African American community. We have a partnership with the National Newspaper Publishers Association, your black newspapers. We think we’ll get content from them—they see things in the trenches every day that never gets talked about. We think there’s a plethora of analytics and commentary in the Historically Black Colleges & Universities. Do you have advertisers on board for launch? Yes. It hurt us a little bit when we pushed out the launch, but the great bulk of our advertisers have stuck with us. I think they understand the challenges expected and unexpected, but more importantly they want a venue to speak to this over trillion-dollar marketplace.
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