Black News Channel
The Black News Channel (BNC) is an American pay television news channel, targeting the African American demographic. The channel is based in Tallahassee, Florida, and launched on February 10, 2020. The station was co-founded by television executive Bob Brillante and former congressman J.C. Watts. Watts is its inaugural chairman. Charter Spectrum, Comcast Xfinity, DirecTV and Verizon Fios carried the channel's linear feed, while Dish Network carried it as a video-on-demand service. In March 2021, BNC was available in 52 million homes, compared to over 83 million for the major cable news outlets and  75 million for conservative news network Newsmax TV. On March 25, 2022, reports emerged that the channel would immediately shut down due to lack of funding. The reports were confirmed later in the day by CEO Princell Hair. The network's discontinued all of its live programming that afternoon, and most of its remaining staff was laid off. However, BNC remains operational as a moribund service, filling its airtime with taped programming. History. J.C. Watts had planned to launch a news network focusing specifically on black American cultural topics since the mid-2000s, and had several rounds of unsuccessful capital-raising  in developing the project. In the mid-2010s, a partnership with Florida A&M’s School of Journalism & Graphic Communication was announced, and the station was slated to be housed there. The channel eventually launched independently of the school, in a building on Killearn Center Boulevard in Tallahassee. The launch of the network was announced in November 2018 for 2019. The launch date was pushed from November 15, 2019 to January 6, 2020 before being pushed again to its eventual launch date, February 10, 2020. One of the chief investors in the network is Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan. In July 2020 , former CNN executive Princell Hair was named president and CEO of Black News Channel. In March 2021, BNC reached an agreement with CBS Media Ventures to handle advertising sales. That same month, BNC launched a revamp of its prime time lineup; progressive black commentators were added to the lineup (in contrast to its chairman Watts, who is a prominent conservative Republican). Much of the network's staff were either dismissed or departed beginning in December 2021. In January 2022, 13 current and former female employees filed a class action lawsuit against BNC, accusing the network of gender discrimination. In response , BNC sent out a memo to their current employees informing them of the network's intent to file a motion for dismissal of the lawsuit. On March 25, 2022, it was reported that the channel would be shutting down imminently after Khan pulled his funding following a failed attempt to sell the network. Live programming was discontinued at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time that afternoon, with the remainder of that day's schedule being filled with taped programming, mainly involving the Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Ketanji Brown Jackson. As of March 26, BNC remains operational, carrying various other programs and  films it has the rights to. The network would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 28.