WHY THIS MATTERS
Cable nets are ramping up drama output to create shows with appeal to the demographic group that watches more television than any other.
A successful single woman is at a crossroads in her life. She wants to have a family, but she's in love with a man who is involved with another woman. In her desire for a child, she goes as far as to steal her lover's sperm.
When he finds about the theft, out he lashes out at her. As he leaves the house for the last time, he turns to her and says, If you wanted a child, all you had to do was ask.
The scene could originate from any primetime or daytime drama on a mainstream cable or broadcast network created to lure female viewers. Instead, the script is from BET's sophomore primetime drama, Being Mary Jane, one of nearly two dozen scripted and reality series created specifically to reach an advertiser-desirable African-American female viewer. It's an audience segment that watches more television than any other demographic and that mostly controls the purse strings for an African-American consumer base estimated to have buying power of more than $1.1 trillion this year.
African-American-targeted networks BET, TV One, Aspire and Centric (which this past November rebranded to target women) join mainstream services such as OWN, VH1, Lifetime, Oxygen, WE tv and Bravo in creating content for African-American women, whom executives say will surf the cable dial to find content reflecting their image and sensibilities.
Lots to Watch
The African-American woman watches so much television that there's room to watch on targeted networks as well as culturally relevant programming on non-targeted networks, said Cynthia Perkins-Roberts, VP for multicultural marketing for the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau.
African-Americans in general watch 37% more television than any other group - more than seven hours per day. African-American women watch nearly eight hours of television per day, easily topping all demographic groups, according to Nielsen.
African-American women watch a lot of television, and I think that it's a proven audience and one that we have always embraced, said D'Angela Proctor, senior VP of programming and production for TV One.
While TV One has consistently focused on targeting African-American female viewers since its launch 10 years ago with shows such as music documentary series Unsung and, more recently, reality fare like R&B Divas, Proctor said other more mainstream networks are beginning to see the value of that audience and have begun to create content to reach that viewer.
Shows mainly featuring African-American women in lead roles are attracting not only African-American female viewers, but viewers across all demographics in big numbers. Bravo's Real Housewives of Atlanta this past November set a network ratings record, drawing 4 million viewers for its seventh-season premiere on Nov. 9.
OWN's Tyler Perry-produced scripted series The Haves and the Have Nots last month set a network record for a season premiere, drawing 3.2 million viewers for its Jan. 6 season 3 debut.
Lifetime's Whitney, an original movie about the late Whitney Houston, drew 4.5 million viewers on Jan. 17, making it 2015's most-watched movie to date.
High-Volume Viewers
African-American women actively seek out shows that appeal to them, Perkins-Roberts said. Viewers in the demographic frequently watch an average of 20 channels - almost twice as many frequently watched channels as viewed by women in other demographic groups, the CAB said.
Young African-American women in particular watch more cable programming than their counterparts. For the 2014-15 television season, African-American female viewers 18-49 generated an astounding 24% rating in primetime among ad supported cable networks, compared to 16% for white women 18-49, the CAB said.
For the six major broadcast networks, the African-American female demo only garners a 9% rating, about the same rating as white women.
So it's no surprise that Oxygen, WE tv, OWN, Bravo, VH1 and Lifetime, among others, are all developing content specifically for black females.
Black female viewers comprise about 20% of Lifetime's audience base, Rob Sharenow, executive VP and general manager, said. Lifetime has garnered critical acclaim and Emmy nominations for several of its diverse original movies, including the 2013 effort Betty & Coretta and last year's A Trip to Bountiful.
There is a lot of interest in that audience because they are an ad-sales target and there are all kinds of brands looking to get those women, and we have them, Sharenow said. I want our channel to reflect the diversity of our country, and I think you can really win when you can bring the widest audience appealing to a lot of different people and different backgrounds.
WE tv's Thursday-night block, which includes Braxton Family Values, Tamar & Vince, Mary, Mary and SWV Reunited, garners a 70% African-American female audience. We saw a great response and built programming to leverage off of that success, network president Marc Juris said. I think every cable company is looking for an audience and we've found a very loyal audience that we've built on.
The key is providing quality fare that offers strong, positive-values-based characters that African-American female viewers can identify with, Juris said.
While many mainstream networks have made inroads toward reaching African-American women, networks with a full-time focus on the demographic still reach the majority of viewers.
Networks geared specifically to African-Americans, such as BET, Centric and TV One, produce programming that account for 76% of the top-indexing programs for black adults, according to Nielsen's 2014 The Black Consumer report.
Superserving the Demo
For us, it's our audi
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
01/06/2026
Designed to solve a common problem in broadcasting, the automated workflow detects, identifies, removes, and documents copyrighted music
AudioShake has introdu...
01/06/2026
The sports-analytics company combines its data with proprietary AI to help leagu...
01/06/2026
Category line-up & sponsors announced
Photo: Paul Clarke
The Production Music Awards (PMA) have announced that submissions are now officially open ahead of...
01/06/2026
New hybrid sample/synthesis instrument revealed
Excite Audio have just released the latest instalment in their Evolve series, which has been developed in co...
01/06/2026
Latest TONEX expansion captures three rare vintage amps
The newest addition to IK Multimedia's ever-growing TONEX line-up introduces a set of three incr...
01/06/2026
Musically intelligent soft synth gets upgraded
Scaler Music will be probably be best known to many for their music theory tools, but their product range al...
01/06/2026
SBS confirms its broadcast sponsors for FIFA World Cup 2026
1 June, 2026
Media releases
SBS has secured Hyundai, Hisense, Macca's, Rexona, bet365, Com...
01/06/2026
Rohde & Schwarz Satellite Industry Days 2026 guided by the motto From Earth to ...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Marshall Electronics is showcasing a comprehensive lineup of next-generation POV cameras, purpose-built to power today's connected AV environments, at InfoC...
01/06/2026
Adobe Announces Concept to Vector
Deepa Subramaniam June 1, 2026
0 Comments
One of the biggest frustrations we hear from designers is how difficult it...
01/06/2026
Vampire Feature Night Patrol Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton June 1, 2026
0 Comments
Colorist shapes dark, gritty tone for horror thri...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Mardi 2 juin 14h00
FilmLight (ARRI), 10 rue Ren Boulanger, 75010 Paris
Rejoignez-nous pour d couvrir comment FLAPI (l'API FilmLight) peut transformer e...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
31/05/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Wins 15 Awards at the Canadian Screen Awards - See Pho...
31/05/2026
Taiwan is home to more than 500 NVIDIA ecosystem partners. More than 1 million N...
31/05/2026
As factories move from isolated automation to plant-wide intelligence, manufacturers need AI systems that can connect live machine signals, quality systems, wor...
31/05/2026
The NVIDIA AI Cloud ecosystem is accelerating the global buildout of AI factory infrastructure. Partners are expanding capacity to meet growing demand from ente...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
WHY THIS MATTERS
