Black News Channel is Sold Off in Fire Sale

When Black News Channel suddenly shut down, screwing over a number of staffers, the network quickly looked for a new buyer.

But, despite the search no one stepped up and was interested in buying BNC.

Allen Media’s head Byron Allen finally did make a lowball offer of just $11 million dollars for BNC. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Florida set a deadline that would allow others to come in with a higher offer.

That never happened and Allen’s $11 million dollar bid was the only offer on the table.

Allen blamed the cable industry for the failure of Black News Channel. He claimed that they “dropped the ball” when it comes to Black News Channel, because cable operators didn’t want to pay sub fees.

“If you really want something to succeed and you don’t want to find it in bankruptcy, and they’re pink slipping 300 Black journalists. Yeah, there should have been some sub fees,” Allen said. “This is the reason I sued the cable industry before for $40 billion. Are you serious? You’re going to pay anywhere from $1-2 for other cable networks, but zero for the Black News Channel?”

Allen also blamed the advertising community for failing to give Black News Channel the love it needed to maintain or grow its operations.

I think what’s lost on Allen is the fact that you have to put a product on the air that people want to watch. When you do that, advertisers will want to buy time and cable companies will pay you to have your channel.

You can’t just launch a business and expect advertisers and cable to pay you so your business is profitable.

Black News Channel had employed some very good and solid Journalists, but they tried to do cable news on the cheap and for that reason, people didn’t watch it.

Put out a product that people want to and are willing to watch and all the other parts will fall into place.