Black Family Channel To Shut Down

According to Multichannel News, the Black Family Channel will shut down.  Despite its star power and its unique positioning -- along with BET and TV One -- as a national network targeting African-American audiences, BFC was unable to secure significant cable and satellite distribution to continue to fund the network, according to sources, thus leading to the Gospel negotiations. If a deal is consummated, it’s unlikely that Gospel will absorb any content from BFC -- including such shows as Lisa Knight and the Roundtable, which recently won a NAMIC Vision Award from the National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications for best children’s program -- according to sources. Thus, this story raises two issues we've been tracking.  First, as PAX TV found out along with BFC, despite all the calls for "Family-Friendly Programming", which those 2 nets used as their calling card, the mass audience doesn't seem to want to watch it.  Second, unless your cable network is owned by one of the cable companies or a broadcast conglomerate, it's toast.  Cable companies favor the cable networks they own.  Broadcast conglomerates can force cable companies to take their niche and spin-off networks as a condition of carrying must have programming like CBS, FOX, ABC, NBC, and ESPN.  Thus, BFC could not hope to gain sufficient cable carriage to compete against BET and TV One, two networks targeted to African-Americans, because both those nets sold all or a big part of themselves to cable or broadcast conglom ownership. Link: Black Family Channel Nears Deal with Gospel Music Channel - Multichannel News.