Well it's about darned time!
I've long since given up on BET, but as you know, I've held out hopes that TV One would finally get off that whole "bourgie lifestyle purveyor" tip and start doing some actual news. They've already got the in-house talent at Syndication One, so just how hard would it be to follow through and do some cheap coverage/analysis of this historic Presidential campaign?
Apparently somebody in TV One Corporate got word of my recent post where I threw them under the bus. Cause now they've got something in store for us come August.
TV One, the cable network aimed at African-American viewers, will cover Barack Obama's nominating convention but is ignoring John McCain's.I think TV One is perfectly justified in ignoring the Republican Convention. They know their target market, and those folks are not tuning in to hear Cotton Hill. They wanna see Obama darnit, so give em' Obama.
The network is telecasting live, prime-time coverage of the Democratic convention in Denver Aug. 25-28, followed by "TV One Live: DNC Afterparty," with political and social commentary from panelists. TV One is available in 43.7 million households, or about 40 percent of the nation's TV homes.
Obama's nomination as the first black to be a major party presidential nominee is an historic event for African-Americans, so it's important for the network to be there, said Johnathan Rodgers, the network's president and CEO.
"While viewers can get coverage of the convention from any number of networks, we plan to cover the convention from a uniquely African American perspective," he said.
The network has no plans to cover the Republican convention.
"We are not a news organization," Rodgers said. "We are a television network that is designed to celebrate African-American achievement. That is why we are covering this convention. If Hillary (Clinton) was the nominee, we would not be covering this year's Democratic convention."
I really don't think there's anything wrong with this. You could argue that providing coverage of the GOP convention would be a way of presenting an unbiased analysis of both sides of the aisle. But let's keep it real: Who wants to watch that sh*t? Their audience is 93% black. That would be ratings suicide. They'd be better off playing a bunch of Rick Astley videos and callin' it a night. It would be cheaper. The net effect would be the same.
Besides, you don't see CMT running exposes on Michelle Obama. They do have that semi-interesting "Pimp My Mobile Home" show[1] however. I'm just sayin', if you wanna accuse BET of coonin', you might wanna peep how our lighter skinned friends are rollin' while you're at it. They're hardly elevating the artform themselves.
Even better is the lineup of talent assembled to cover this thing.
The convention floor coverage co-hosted by XM Radio and WOL-AM (Washington., DC) radio host Joe Madison and CN8 Anchor Arthur Fennell will be followed by the show "TV One Live: DNC Afterparty," anchored by veteran journalist Jacque Reid and co-hosted by Rev. Marcia and Michael Eric Dyson. TV One commentator Roland Martin will serve as chief political analyst and provide daily commentary and a wrap up of the day’s events.You guys already know how much I like Joe Madison. I'm no fan of Michael Eric Dyson's shtick, but he beats whatever's on CNN by a mile. AverageSis' favorite, Roland Martin is getting two checks now. And of course, I will enjoy seeing Jacque Reid on TV again. I was wondering where she landed after BET News got ethered. They didn't even let her do the customary BET Awards Afterparty this year. As my wife would say, "it's good to know she's working, at least".
Regular contributors to the post-convention show will include Rev. Al Sharpton, actor and author Hill Harper, comedienne Sheryl Underwood, Sister2Sister magazine publisher Jamie Foster Brown, TV One chef and culinary expert G. Garvin, and style and fashion expert Paul Wharton Huggy Lowdown, The Celebrity Snitch from the Tom Joyner Morning Show, will also phone in celebrity gossip and reports from around the convention’s official and unofficial events.
I have no idea why bamas like Huggy Lowdown, Sheryl Underwood (I guess she's the GOP rep), the Sister To Sister chick, and G. Garvin need to be anywhere within a 500 mile radius of Denver, but hey, I guess it can't all be serious news stuff.
Cause you know how we do.
I'm sure many will decry this as further proof that Black folks need to stop being taken for granted by the Democratic Party, and that by only choosing to broadcast this convention, and not the GOP's, it presents a one-sided view of the issues.
Poppycock.
Reality is, this is a celebration of a landmark cultural accomplishment. It's completely logical that an entertainment channel catering to the community for whom this history of being made would choose to cover it.
Had Hillary won, WifeTime™ and Oxygen would have carried her speech. Trinity Broadcast Network would have been all over Mike Huckabee. Ditto for Telemundo and Bill Richardson. And had Dennis Kucinich somehow been struck twice by lightning and found himself deemed "The Man", I'm sure the SciFi Channel would have carried it as well.[2]
It's all about cultural relevance. Nothing wrong with that.
Whether or not this rolls over into full blown regular news and analysis remains to be seen, but either way, props to TV One for realizing a need and filling it.
I'm already settin' the Tivo.
Question: Will you give TV One's coverage of the Democratic National Convention a look? Do you think they should have provided equal coverage of the GOP and PappyMac? Will Huggy Lowdown set a new televised record for utterings of the word "bama"?
TV One to offer extensive Obama coverage [AP]
[1] Seriously, has anyone else stumbled across this show? It makes Hell Date and Comic View look like haute couture.
[2] Laugh now, figure it out when you get home. And BTW, The SciFi Channel in HD = The New Greatest Thing Evar!
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*swoon* Hill Harper *swoon*...this should be interesting, especially with Huggy Lowdown...
I really like Joe Madison (the Black Eagle) as well. This should be worth watching. Sheryl Underwood is funny, though. The rest of the comic relief I could do without.
Can't wait to see what Oprah's new network will be like. (Hope not Oxygen or "Strifetime".)
@ebw Strifetime? Now that cracks me up!
Im not watching TVOne's coverage. Why? CNN and MSNBC perform enough favors for Barak as it is. What is TVOne gong to do that they cant?
I wouldn't watch it for the mere reason that the CEO gave, it's not a news program. As happy as I am to see a brotha have a run at president, I don't treat this as entertainment. It's news. I want to hear both sides and what others are thinking so that I can properly formulate my opinion. At the end of the day I am not against every Republican idea that I hear and in the same breath I am not for every Democratic idea.
Like the CEO said if Hillary was the winner they wouldn't be showing it. So that tells me that they are not really that interested in the issues at hand so I am not really that interested in what they have to say.
Here's a serious question that I would like for everyone ask themselves, "Would you vote for Barack Obama if he were white?" And you don't have to be politically correct. Honestly, I don't know. I definitely would not know as much about him.
Why Huggy Lowdown? Why? Why? Why? Why? Was Flavor Flav busy?
LOL@holla! hahaha... :)
I don't care whether they show the GOP Convention or not.I will predict here that some black Republican will be on the speaker's list, and he will give an excellent speech that will not be covered by TV One or BET.
Honestly... TV One is a business. They know their market. I think it's fine, and I have never been a fan of the Fairness Doctrine or of equal-time bullshit. I will say that Obama != DNC Convention, and that's a lot of airtime for white folk they're providing if they run the whole thing.
Please contact your Democrat representative and tell them that you agree, equal time for political speech shouldn't be required from broadcasters, and that they should stop trying to force the Fairness Doctrine down the throats of Republican lawmakers and the public.
Surprise! AB and the rest of you support the Republican position on this issue. :) Thanks!
Since Ms. Cathy Huge is a Republican I am surprise she is allowing this to take place. Tom Joyner has a stake in TV One: Huggy Low Down, Sheryl Underwood and Jacque Reid all are part of his staff. It's seems more like entertainment than news.
TV One is a private company and is under no obligation to air anything they don't want to, including the GOP Convention.
However, I don't see much benefit of them covering the Dems, and I do see some serious pitfalls.
1) TV One has already said that they aren't a news organization and will be there to "celebrate" the experience, rather than to report. As anybody who has watched Dick Clark on New Year's Eve can attest, a little celebration goes a long way, and trying to make it a live extended broadcast of one gets real old real fast.
2) It will provide additional ammunition to those who will say, "See, Obama is the Candidate of the Blacks (as opposed to the Black Candidate.)
"That's the only reason he got the nomination and the head of TV One said as much, that they wouldn't be there if it weren't for his skin color."
3) It just reiterates the message, which the Democrats seem to have received loud and clear, that they have to do absolutely nothing to court the Black vote except provide an alternative that isn't Republican.
I think I should clarify something. There IS a serious component of their coverage. Joe Madison and Arthur Fennell are serious journalists. They'll be handlin the actual convention coverage itself.
The "After Party" with Huggy Low Down, Sheryl Underwood and Friends is probably the entertainment/coonin' portion of the night.
I'll probably watch both, and flip around to the other "real news" channels (Fox [yeah, really], CNN, MSNBC) too. This stuff really ain't THAT serious, make no mistake, when you hold a speech in a football stadium, there's some element of "show" at play.
as I come back from Philadelphia (realising I missed the Jackson Family Feud):
I NEED to know what you're distaste for Michael Eric Dyson is?
JLL
@ uppity
MED just LOVES to hear himself talk. The whole "old guy that raps" novelty wore thin once I realized that 90% of the time he is saying absolutely nothing. Its like intellectual mastrubation.
Seriously, next time he is on TV, listen and watch closely. He will start talking quickly. He will drop some $5 words. He will literally zone out and half close his eyes. And when he stops talking 8 mins later, you'll be like "what the hell is he talkin about?"
Seriously, try it next time. I dont dislike him (especially his books, which are usually great), but he does tend to annoy after awhile.
I won't be watching it because I don't have a TV and I don't want to waste my couple hours of TV watching goodwill at friends' houses on this.
But I will say that if I had one and was home, I may flip to it a bit.
@ CJames - yes. I was never a Clinton supporter and probably would have voted for Edwards had he still be in the race for my primary. I only started supporting Obama after Edwards dropped out. Here's my reasons why I'm supporting Obama: http://brilliantfabulous.blogspot.com/2008/02/why-i-voted-for-barack-obama.html.
@ AB
I feel you on MED. We brought him to speak while I was in undergrad, and while I think he was an absolutley great person to speak with one on one, much of what he said was lost on the college crowd. He uses too many SAT words for the average person. And for those that do understand his vocab, those words aren't making his point any more clear.
LOL, AB!
"Seriously, next time he is on TV, listen and watch closely. He will start talking quickly. He will drop some $5 words. He will literally zone out and half close his eyes. And when he stops talking 8 mins later, you'll be like "what the hell is he talkin about?"
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EXACTLY: It's Damon Wayans Schtick from In Living Color!! (which was brilliant at the time, I must say.)
Everyone seems to lose sight of the fact that this is black history in real time. Why shouldn't TVOne celebrate it? On the real, I don't care if you're a republican or a democrat..if you're a person of African descent, across the diaspora--you will be celebrating. Can you imagine how the people of Kenya will react?
WHAT DOES IT REALLY TAKE FOR EDUCATED PROFESSIONAL TO REALLY COME UP WITH NEWS PROGRAMMING... WITH ALL OF THESE BLOG ... tv 1 NEEDS TO HAVE SOME.. AND IN MY OPINION THIS IS A BUNCH OF BULL .. WHY WOULD WE ONLY COVER OBAMA RACE.. ARE YOU KIDDING ME ?
First step: capslock. Then move on to news programming.
As an Obamaican supporter, I find it to a good idea for TV One to cover the democratic convention, however we must also realize that is a biased and disheartening approach to covering the presidential election.
To automatically assume that all African-Americans are going to vote for Obama only because he is black is nothing more than once again taking the black vote for granted.
Once again, from the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons speaking their anti-prgressive rhetoric, which essentially amounts to blaming America for African-Americans problems and of course requesting the government to continue provide social programs and services, which at least for a large portion of them have done nothing but further the marginalization of African-Americans into one big melting pot, which is not the case for all of us.
Where is the loyalty from the Democratic Party for African-Americans.
The truth is it is "Unfounded Loyalty" or Unjustified Loyalty
It's worse than that.. .the Democratic party has won the black vote by telling the community they're eternal victims, guaranteeing the truth of that statement by creating programs that incentivize poverty and failure, then saying they'll fix everything if you only vote for them.
Not to say that the Republicans have done much to court black Americans, but at least they haven't systematically screwed them with ghetto housing, destructive welfare systems, and low-income dodgy mortgages.
@ AB and talentedtenth
Well, granted he talks a mile a minute, I just stray from talking bad about him because he's such a rarety--I mean, I've always been impressed with his intellectual prowess. I think the problem is that he ends up towering so far over the people he usually sits on panels with that he comes off as elitist and uppity (but you know that's my kind of thinking, hence my name, lol).
However, he's one of the few people, period, who can actually outtalk the host of a program. Like I'd be interested to see him go up against a Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly.
Iono, I guess, based on you all's responses that much of his intellectualism is lost on him coming off as a prick.
And perhaps his "intellectual masturbation" is more of an invite for people to join him, but maybe he's too big and the folks get scared.
AHHHHHHH! LMAO!
JLL
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