Related: Channeling Their Course in Diversity
Entrepreneurial programmers are looking to turn digital video services into the new black for African-American viewers.
With African-Americans watching more linear television than any other group and staying among the most active viewers of content on mobile phones and tablets, some video over-the-top and digital-only services believe viewers will seek out - and ultimately pay for - content that showcases their images and stories.
There's tremendous demand by African-American consumers for content and that's shown up historically in everything from TV viewing to pay-cable penetration, Robert Johnson, CEO of movie-based OTT service Urban Movie Channel, said. There's also tremendous talent in the African-American community that wants to tell stories that the current system does not always tell.
Johnson, who founded BET, said the OTT environment lets producers, directors and writers tell the stories they want without interference from a middleman distributor or a skittish advertiser. Johnson's UMC offers a library of quality movies from around the world - many of which are exclusive - written, produced by and starring African-Americans.
Related: What Diverse Women Watch
Launched in March 2015, the service charges $4.99 per month for access on computers, mobile phones and tablets via the Urban Movie Channel app available through iTunes.
For the first time, there's capital behind an OTT streaming service that will allow stories to be told in a differentiated manner free from fear of economic, political or advertiser censorship, said Johnson, although he would not reveal specific subscriber numbers for UMC. More and more African-Americans are becoming cord-cutters because they are now able to choose what they want to watch when they want to watch it, and take it to wherever they want to go to watch it.
Another subscription OTT movie service seeks to reach a cross-section of older fans of '70s Blaxpoitation movies and younger viewers interested in the classic flicks. Brown Sugar - which launched this past November and is run by the African-American-targeted Bounce TV multicast network - showcases a library of familiar African-American-themed films such as Shaft, Coffy and Super Fly.
Related: Opening Gate to Multicultural Stories
Calandria Meadows, VP of social media and digital content for Brown Sugar, said the $3.99 monthly service has been successful in generating subscriptions, although she would not reveal specifics. African-Americans were being underserved with subscription video-on-demand services, so we created Brown Sugar, she said. African-Americans consume more video entertainment than any ethnicity, yet have been tremendously underserved by all forms of it.
Big Viewing Target
African-Americans consumed 207 hours per month of live television during the fourth quarter of 2016 - well above the 147 hours watched by all viewers and the 113 hours generated by Hispanic viewers, according to Nielsen's Total Audience Report.
African-American viewers also watched more video on smartphones than other ethnic groups, according to Nielsen.
There's no rocket science in determining who is watching the most television, said Curtis Symonds, CEO of HBCUX, an educational and entertainment-based digital service offering programming for and about the 105 historic black colleges and universities.
Symonds said the service is uniquely positioned to serve young millennial college students who are accessing video content on their mobile phones and laptops. Let's face it, phones and iPads are quickly becoming the television for a generation of viewers, he said.
Digital distribution doesn't have to be the only way to reach the consumer in this emerging television environment. Symonds said he has thrown his hat into the ring for a coveted position among the two African-American-owned and targeted networks Comcast has promised to support in 2019 as part of conditions the MSO agreed to in its 2011 acquisition of NBCUniversal.
Related: Chicago Med's' Tee Breaks Out, Breaks Stereotypes
Johnson has also not ruled out potentially offering UMC as a premium service on multichannel video programming distributor lineups. We're open to platforms that comport to our subscription model, he said. If there is an opportunity to create that model in any kind of platform, whether DirecTV or cable, we would be interested in that.
UMC has already reached back to the cable industry for promotional opportunities, teaming with AMC Networks to stream episodes of WE tv's African-American-targeted shows such as Braxton Family Values on UMC. UMC last week offered the first season of the docuseries in advance of the show's sixth-season finale, which aired May 25.
They get additional exposure from us and we get promotion from them, Johnson said. Those kinds of opportunities are only going to grow as we get bigger and offer more original programming.
Brown Sugar has tapped a linear television partnership with parent Bounce TV to market and promote the service both on-air and online, according to Meadows, and recruited '70s action-movie stars Pam Grier and Fred Williamson - plus contemporary hip hop artist Rick Ross - to get the word out.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Related: Channeling Their Course in Diversity
