Saturday, August 12: The ABW Almost Daily Commentary - What is that Smell? Radio & TV Programming for a Black Audience

What is that Smell?  Programming Radio and TV For a Black Audience, Of Course

I want to share some thoughts with you all in what I hope will be seeds that you will continue to nurture.  I have been asked on many occasions why I have undertaken this endeavor, this internet radio show.  Well, I've been around broadcasting for a long time.  I've worked at the FCC, BET and NBC, and I've worked for the broadcasters' lobbyists group, the National Association of Broadcasters, and currently for public broadcasting. I've watched for many years while the interests of African Americans got low profile coverage or were blatantly ignored and pushed to the back burner, depending on, of course, who was in the White House.  As technology has changed and will continue to for many years to come, African Americans have to learn, not just what the technology is and its accompanying buzz words, but how to serve our communities news and information needs by using that same technology.  We cannot continue to just be consumers and provide ourselves and our progeny with the latest and greatest toys and believe we're apart of what's hip because we've got new gadgets.  In The New York Times dated August 4, and in a cute play on words, Lydia Polgreen wrote:  "All the News that Fits: Liberia's Blackboard Headline."  In this struggling African country there beats a fervent heart much like my own.  Mr. Serleaf gets it.  He understands that knowledge is power.  As he writes his chalkboard news for his community, he must be wishing, hoping, praying that one day, what he does will not be necessary.

In the United States, this bastion of the spoiled and greedy, I have been plagued, of late, by thoughts of what Black folks consider information and news and the businesses that delivers those bits of infinitesimal misinformation, those small flavorless morsels that Clear Channel, Radio One, NBC, BET, W this and K that,  and all the other broadcasting alphabet soup that are pretending to serve the Black communities around the country by serving up wall to wall hip-hop and R&B and making the news disappear.  I recently remembered that day several years ago, when BET announced the decision to murder its news programming.  I don't remember the exact day the news died on BET, but I remember feeling that things were changing and not for the better.  What other broadcasters or cablecasters could take up the flag or wear the mantel, or was better positioned to serve our community than BET?  Even before BET sold out they could have shown the world how to educate a community.   As MTV celebrates the 25^th anniversary of the channel that hip-hop made, the channel is showing the first video seen on the channel.  It was "Video Killed the Radio Star."  Apparently, the entertainment division of these conglomerates killed the news.  The awful thing is we would need something akin CSI to solve the crime or better yet a good game of Clue.  Was radio and TV news done in by Professor Plum in the library with a lead pipe or maybe by Bob Johnson in the bank with a billion large or better yet and probably more true is that the news was done in by the very community that it was serving and its willingness to continue to accept being 2^nd rate and to take crumbs from the table, after all isn't that what we've always done.

The line between entertainment and news has blurred to the point of news becoming a faint, infrequent apparition.  As I've said before, there is less and less news in a news broadcast these days and I believe that in some communities the viewers and listeners mistake news for entertainment and entertainment for news.  How will our community mobilize, be informed, make a change?  In the past, at least in Washington DC, there was a healthy, competitive cadre of African American news professionals.  They were informed, responsible and worked stories until the last unseemly detail was exposed.  They were responsible for what was disseminated into the community and it was because of their diligence that news was the news.  Stations were built around the strength of their news operations and the information they could deliver to the community.  Yes, the day to day act of living can be difficult, challenging and down right painful.  Sometimes the headlines of the day meet you like a ton of bricks.  You want to look the other way.  But today's audiences have been slowly trained, conditioned and seemingly, literally programmed to expect less and be more interested in some far off star's lives than what's happening in their own neighborhoods.  But there are small voices out there, like mine who are speaking out.  Those voices will get louder and more insistent that radio stations, particularly, really serve the communities that they come into.

I would love to see Radio One, Clear Channel, and any other enterprise that delivers relevant, competent news to our community thrive and prosper.  But in recently released second quarter financial reports, Radio One, whose founder Kathy Hughes, sent this writer and host an email of suport several months ago, earnings fell 4% from a year ago to $97.8 million.  Profit dropped 59% from a year ago to $8.1 and the stock fell about 8%.  I can only hope that listeners are driving the landscape to change. 

Last week The Wall Street Journal ran an article titled "Moguls of New Media." In this article about podcasting and podcasters are delivering programming to and making deals with traditional media outlets, there was not one African American enterprise that made the cut.  It is my hope that the African American audience wakes up and begins makes more thoughtful decisions about where their news, information and entertainment comes from.  If what you're having served up looks like filet mignon, but smells like crap you better check it twice before taking a bite.

See ya next time,
Sunny