Black News Channel shuts down days after ratings high

NEW YORK (AP) — The Black Information Channel has pulled the plug after the 2-yr-outdated undertaking failed to satisfy payroll and shed the backing of its greatest trader.

Princell Hair, the company’s president and CEO, explained to staff Friday in a memo that the information community was ceasing reside manufacturing and would file for bankruptcy. BNC was offered in some 50 million households with cable and satellite but experienced failed to attract lots of viewers.

The network, established in 2020 by previous GOP congressman J.C. Watts, employed extra than 250 Black journalists and generation personnel very last yr in a relaunch adhering to an investment decision by Jacksonville Jaguars proprietor Shahid Khan.

But it was continuously dropping dollars, despite two rounds of layoffs, and Khan decided to stop investing in it even further. It is at this time 3 weeks small of payroll, a business spokesman said.

Hair, a former CNN government, took around in the relaunch last calendar year. BNC brought on contributors like Charles Blow, columnist at The New York Periods, and commentator Marc Lamont Hill. Correspondents had been stationed in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta and Philadelphia.

The finish arrived even as BNC recorded its most significant audience at any time this week with its live coverage of the Judiciary Committee hearing for U.S. Supreme Court docket nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Hair reported.

He explained to workforce that their contributions experienced been remarkable, but “due to hard current market disorders and world wide economical pressures, we have been unable to satisfy our money plans, and the timeline afforded to us has operate out.”

Creating a network is specifically difficult at a time when individuals have so several selections and lots of are chopping cable or satellite cords.

“Remember that we crafted anything terrific below,” Hair claimed in his memo. “BNC, or a thing pretty shut to it, will absolutely return at some position, simply because the environment wants it, and all of you have verified it can be carried out.”

Information of BNC’s shutdown was 1st reported by the Los Angeles Periods.

The Countrywide Association of Black Journalists explained Friday that it was wanting at methods to assistance customers that had been thrown out of operate by the shutdown.

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This story has been up-to-date to right the identify of the Black Information Channel’s main trader. He is Shahid Khan, not Shahid Kahn.