Black News Channel shuts down days after ratings high

NEW YORK (AP) — The Black Information Channel has pulled the plug right after the 2-12 months-old enterprise unsuccessful to meet up with payroll and shed the backing of its largest trader.

Princell Hair, the company’s president and CEO, informed staff members Friday in a memo that the information community was ceasing reside output and would file for personal bankruptcy. BNC was available in some 50 million homes with cable and satellite but experienced unsuccessful to entice a lot of viewers.

The network, established in 2020 by former GOP congressman J.C. Watts, hired additional than 250 Black journalists and output personnel final yr in a relaunch next an financial commitment by Jacksonville Jaguars operator Shahid Khan.

But it was constantly dropping revenue, even with two rounds of layoffs, and Khan decided to quit investing in it additional. It is currently three weeks limited of payroll, a firm spokesman reported.

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

The close came even as BNC recorded its largest viewers at any time this week with its live protection of the Judiciary Committee hearing for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Hair said.

He instructed employees that their contributions had been amazing, but “due to difficult current market problems and world wide financial pressures, we have been not able to meet up with our monetary objectives, and the timeline afforded to us has operate out.”

Setting up a network is particularly challenging at a time when people have so many alternatives and numerous are cutting cable or satellite cords.

“Remember that we crafted some thing great in this article,” Hair claimed in his memo. “BNC, or something extremely shut to it, will absolutely return at some position, since the entire world requires it, and all of you have proven it can be completed.”

News of BNC’s shutdown was first noted by the Los Angeles Periods.

The Nationwide Association of Black Journalists claimed Friday that it was on the lookout at means to assist members that ended up thrown out of do the job by the shutdown.

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This tale has been current to right the identify of the Black Information Channel’s main investor. He is Shahid Khan, not Shahid Kahn.