Johnson: 'We Need More Minority’ TV
by John Eggerton -- Multichannel News, 3/9/2009 2:00:00 AM
Bob Johnson, founder of BET and currently chairman of RLJ Companies, is trying to team with Ion Media on a new African-American focused network employing some of the multicast channels of Ion’s 60 stations, including in all of the top 20 media markets. He and Ion Media Networks chairman Brandon Burgess have asked the Federal Communications Commission for mandatory cable carriage of the channels that would carry the proposed Urban TV, arguing that it furthers the FCC’s mandate to promote diversity. Cable operators have expressed concern about the Urban TV proposal and extending what they see as an already-tenuous precedent of mandatory cable carriage of a TV station’s primary digital signals. Johnson spoke with Multichannel News Washington bureau chief John Eggerton last week about the issues involved. An edited transcript follows:
MCN: Why should Urban TV get government help?
Bob Johnson: I think that BET, TV One, every African-American entrepreneur trying to start a business has asked the Congress, mayors of cities with African-American populations and the FCC to encourage cable operators to require greater diversity.
Cable television has not provided the kind of diversity specifically to serve the African-American community and I think we have all been in that situation of asking the FCC to provide more diversity. There is a problem in the fact that the gatekeepers, in this case the cable operators, aren’t providing sufficient diversity for Hispanics, women, gays, lesbians and others.
I feel that what we were doing is consistent with what African-American entrepreneurs have done since television and radio became available.
MCN: What about the issue of technological constraints on system capacity, which means somebody has to go?
BJ: The technological capacity of a shared digital license does not limit channel capacity [Urban is proposing to share the digital licenses of Ion Media’s 60 TV stations and program them with Urban-targeted programming.]
In fact, today, every broadcaster if they were to broadcast in HDTV, as they have the right to do, operators would have to carry it. A split digital feed takes up no more capacity than an HDTV feed. So, there is not a threat that channel capacity will be reduced and therefore operators will have to make a choice between BET and Urban TV or Urban TV and TV One.
That is just a scare tactic by the cable operators and something that is not true. I think the fact is that there is plenty of room in a 500-channel universe for more than one or two or three minority-oriented channels.
MCN: I guess it shouldn’t surprise you from a competitive standpoint that [African-American targeted network] TV One would oppose this since they argue that requiring cable to carry you could mean knocking TV One out of the lineup?
BJ: It does surprise me. That’s how TV One came to be. Asking for carriage and insisting that cable operators provide more diversity and give TV One more carriage and that BET was not enough and there was room for more than two channels serving the 30 million African-Americans in 8-9 million African-American households who spend an inordinate amount of money on cable. African-Americans have the highest penetration of basic, the highest penetration of pay per view than any population group in the country.
To say that cable can’t afford to offer more channels is crazy. And to assume that because another channel comes about that they are going to drop BET makes the case that we need FCC action to get carriage. If we’re the last added and the first dropped, there is something wrong with the system.
Taking their suggestion of going system by system to get carriage is just not going to happen. Neither one of us could survive had we not been putting pressure on cable operators to carry us and urging the government and city official to put us in franchises. So, there is a problem. I was disappointed that they would try to make this a competition between BET and TV One and Urban Television. We should be joining forces and saying we need more carriage, not less carriage.
We need more minority programming, not less minority programming, and we shouldn’t accept the fact that because one of us is added another one gets shut down.
MCN: Have you gotten any sense from the FCC of when, if or whether they are going to approve it?
BJ: We made the rounds with some of the commissioners and said we think this is an innovative use of digital technology and encourages diversity and encourages minority ownership and will add to diversity at the local level. When they will take it up — probably not until the FCC is fully constituted.
For more from this interview, see Multichannel.com.
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When Bob Johnson launched BET, and was being pressured for more accurate images of African Americans than were being portrayed, he very smugly stated to a national neswspaper reporter that the network "wasn't about serving the masses of black people," and that he created it "only to take care of his family" financially. Well, Mr. Johnson, with the damage you've done to generations of black children and their self-esteem, the "masses of black people" don't back you and your mission now. Oh yes, and incidently, we are not "minorities" in this country.
Ronald E. Childs - 3/17/2009 11:47:02 AM EDT -
I seriously doubt that when they created Fox, ABC, or NBC they thought to themselves "Hey, Let's create a white network!" So I still feel that this statement is pretty racist. If cultures want to create a network or show, be my guest. However, I feel it is COMPLETELY inappropriate to bluntly state it's a "Black" or "African-American" station. I also do not think it's right to make it mandatory to show it. Pay for the space like the rest of the stations. Wouldn't that be equal rights? This shouldn't even be discussed. (I'm really curious about what would happen if a station ever had the audacity to state it was a "Caucasian" station.)
KateL - 3/13/2009 7:38:42 PM EDT -
We do need more Minority programming. As for as the mindset of where is the Caucasian Network we look at them everyday (NBC,CBS,FOX,etc. It is already part of the infrastructure but the average person is blind to the concept that is taken for granted in our day to day lives in every aspect. LOGO has been created for the Gay & Lesbian viewer, Lifetime and WE for Women, SiTV for Hispanics, there is a lot of Niche Networks so when Black people want another network people need to respect that like we respect all the white networks we love to watch. We have been watching white people for 50 years on TV. We are here and we are not going anywhere and we have more than contributed to this nation along with it making plenty money off of our communities. Regardless of all the fancy and negative statistics we are a viable powerful community and we want to watch TV with some black people sometimes. There is nothing wrong with that. There is some much more to America than ABC has to offer. Minority money is spent big time with the sponsors and advertisers who buy ads on ABC, FOX or NBC and not TV One or BET before Viacom, so maybe our billions of dollars we have been spending should go towards advertisers who don't mind supporting more diverse TV shows or Networks that represents the emerging demo of the country. They have stats for that too.
Dianne Hall - 3/12/2009 3:45:11 PM EDT -
Mr. Johnson wants to piggyback on someone else's dime. When he set up and sorta' owned BET, he promised educational and cultural programming for African-Americans. BET became the "hoochie-mama-butt-shaking" channel. In the ION/Johnson filing, is there an ironclad promise of public service or educational TV? Urban TV would be nothing more than infomercials and reruns of reruns and then it would start up with a little T&A here, a little T&A there—down the slippery slope. Johnson burned his bridges—politically and morally. Why give him another shot?
J. Womack - 3/9/2009 2:23:25 PM EDT -
Fine if Urban TV get's"must carry" then all other digital multicast channels should.
No exceptions, everyone sit at multicast" lunch counter" or no one!
Chip Harwood - 3/9/2009 12:11:18 PM EDT
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