The nation’s first 24/7 network for African American news is now available on Spectrum
The nation’s first 24/7 news channel focused on African American communities and issues is now available to cable, satellite and streaming customers in North Carolina.
The Black News Channel (BNC) is an independent, minority owned and operated network, headquartered in Tallahassee, Florida, and co-founded by Chairman J.C. Watts Jr., a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma, and CEO Bob Brillante.
The network has news studios in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., and will have smaller bureaus located in the Top 20 African American TV markets across the country. Those bureaus were not listed on the BNC website, but the Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville and Charlotte markets are considered Top 20 markets by Nielsen for African American viewers.
BNC, which debuted Feb. 10, is available free to Spectrum customers who have the Spectrum TV Silver package, the Digital Tier Package 1, or the Spectrum Lifestyle TV package. You can find it on channel 232.
You can also get BNC on Comcast Xfinity’s X1 platform and Dish Network, but those companies seem to be offering the channel as a “subscription video-on-demand service,” according to a report in USA Today. The channel can also be streamed on Sling, Roku, Xumo and Vizio Smart TVs.
Black News Channel programming
According to the Black News Channel website, programming includes weekly sports programs that focus on events at Historically Black Universities and Colleges and studio shows such as “Being a Woman”; “My America,” hosted by J.C. Watts Jr.; “Getting Ready with Jane: Today’s Teen,” hosted by family therapist Jane Marks; “Living Social at HBCUs”; “Black America This Week,” featuring national correspondent Byron Pitts; and “My Money,” which will focus on making and managing money.
Watts told USA Today that the network will be “culturally specific to the African-American community.”
To mark the network’s debut on Spectrum, the cable company hosted a panel discussion on diversity and entrepreneurship in media and technology last week at the Durham Arts Center, with guests J.C. Watts Jr., North Carolina state senators Valerie Foushee and Paul Lowe, and North Carolina representative Zack Hawkins.
