Black News Channel shuts down days after ratings high

NEW YORK (AP) — The Black Information Channel has pulled the plug soon after the 2-12 months-old venture failed to meet payroll and dropped the backing of its most important trader.

Princell Hair, the company’s president and CEO, told employees Friday in a memo that the news network was ceasing reside creation and would file for personal bankruptcy. BNC was accessible in some 50 million homes with cable and satellite but experienced failed to draw in lots of viewers.

The network, started in 2020 by former GOP congressman J.C. Watts, employed more than 250 Black journalists and output personnel previous 12 months in a relaunch next an investment by Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan.

But it was consistently shedding money, even with two rounds of layoffs, and Khan determined to cease investing in it additional. It is at present 3 weeks small of payroll, a organization spokesman said.

Hair, a previous CNN executive, took around in the relaunch very last calendar year. BNC introduced on contributors like Charles Blow, columnist at The New York Instances, and commentator Marc Lamont Hill. Correspondents were being stationed in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta and Philadelphia.

The conclude came even as BNC recorded its largest viewers ever this 7 days with its reside coverage of the Judiciary Committee listening to for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Decide Ketanji Brown Jackson, Hair stated.

He advised personnel that their contributions had been exceptional, but “due to difficult sector situations and worldwide financial pressures, we have been unable to meet our economical objectives, and the timeline afforded to us has run out.”

Setting up a community is particularly tricky at a time when people have so numerous decisions and quite a few are chopping cable or satellite cords.

“Remember that we created something good listed here,” Hair explained in his memo. “BNC, or some thing very near to it, will absolutely return at some place, since the world requirements it, and all of you have proven it can be finished.”

Information of BNC’s shutdown was 1st documented by the Los Angeles Occasions.

The National Affiliation of Black Journalists claimed Friday that it was looking at techniques to support associates that ended up thrown out of operate by the shutdown.

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This tale has been up-to-date to correct the name of the Black Information Channel’s chief investor. He is Shahid Khan, not Shahid Kahn.