NEW YORK — Black News Channel, the TV news service launched in 2019 to be a voice for people of color, is ceasing operations as soon as Friday, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The Tallahassee, Florida-based outlet, whose majority stakeholder is Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan, failed to meet payroll on Friday, a day after telling employees that paychecks would be delayed. An announcement that the company will cease operations, putting its staff of 230 — a vast majority of whom are people of color — out of work, could come later in the day.
Khan was no longer willing to invest further, according to people briefed on the matter. The channel has been shopped to a number of media companies, including Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios, but they were no takers.
A representative for Black News Channel declined comment.
Black News Channel was conceived by a group headed up by former Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., and media executive Bob Brilliante. The channel launched after Khan made a $50 million investment in 2019, making him the majority shareholder.
The channel reached more than 50 million cable and satellite households, but was unable to generate a significant audience.
The entity was entering the cable news landscape at a time when consumers have been shifting away from traditional TV. Most video-based TV startups and niche services are turning to streaming platforms.
The average audience for BNC was fewer than 10,000 viewers, according to Nielsen data, though it had been growing in recent months.
The failure to meet payroll and the expected announcement of a shutdown stunned and angered employees at the channel. Many of the staffers came to BNC from larger, established news organizations because they believed in the mission of a TV service that provided news and information for a diverse audience.
But BNC, which delayed its launch a few times, had to overcome some early stumbles. When Watt announced the network, he signaled that it would have a conservative slant, which likely turned off a large segment of the potential audience. He touted a possible show with right-wing radio host and former California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder.
The company also had to deal with a class-action discrimination lawsuit filed by former and current women employees. The suit alleged that the women were being paid less than their male counterparts and that managers complained that they were “insufficiently feminine.”
Hair, a veteran news executive who once headed CNN’s U.S. operations, was brought in after the launch and made the channel look more like the established cable news outlets, mixing breaking news coverage during the day and with opinion programs at night.
Hair also signed several big-name hosts, including New York Times opinion writer Charles Blow and former Atlanta TV anchor Sharon Reed.
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