Saying goodbye to TV One
By Roland S. Martin
Very few people can say that they were there when a company was literally being born.
In 2002, I was attending the The National Cable & Telecommunications Association’s annual convention in New Orleans, and my longtime friend, Johnathan Rodgers got together for drinks.
Johnathan and I served on the board of directors of the National Association of Black Journalists when I was the national student representative, and we are also members of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. When he retired from Discovery as president, I read a story in the Washington Post where he said his desire would be to one day launch a successful Black cable network. At the time, I was doing some freelance work with the fledgling Major Broadcasting Cable Network, owned by several prominent African Americans. I hooked them up for a meeting but nothing materialized.
After Johnathan and I had our meeting in the hotel bar, he had to get to another meeting over drinks in the same bar. Who was that with? Alfred Liggins, who was running Radio One with his mother, Cathy Hughes. He introduced me to Alfred and off they went.
A few months later, Johnathan called me to tell me that he agreed to help this launch this network, which at the time didn’t even have a name. And he made clear that he was going to put me on it because “your voice is needed to be heard on a national level.”
It still boggles my mind that I was present at the beginning stages of a network that I would go on to do some amazing things with for 13 years.
Johnathan kept his promise when, in 2005, he hired me to host several news specials, and to do to 60-second commentaries on TV One. We shot our first promo at the Chicago Defender, where I was the executive editor. I never knew that would lead to be being associated with TV One for 13 of the 14 years of its existence, the longest place I’ve ever worked.
Johnathan had me doing a little bit of everything. As an upstart cable network, we had to build audience awareness of who we were, so he would send me to different cities across the nation to host panels, seminars, and give keynote speeches, all to pump folks up on the ground to ask their cable systems to carry TV One.
When then Sen. Barack Obama decided to run for president of the United States, Johnathan said TV One was going to go big and cover the campaign. Sen. Obama and I sat down for a one-on-one interview, and that garned TV One’s its first ever NAACP Image Award. The next year, my “In Conversation” with Michelle Obama won us our second NAACP Image Award.
Now in 2007, I joined CNN, and many thought I would leave TV One behind. But I told Johnathan that he was the first person in TV to pay me for my perspective, and I would never leave them because a mainstream network was bigger. On the night Obama won the presidency, CNN had me on all night, but I made it clear that I needed to go to a flash cam studio to also do TV One. I was always loyal to Black-owned media, even on that night.
Johnathan always said I deserved my own daily or weekend show on CNN. So in May 2009, after meeting when CNN U.S. President Jon Klein, who informed me they would not be giving me a weekend show, I wasn’t more than 100 feet out of his office when Johnathan and I were on the phone.
“So CNN isn’t going to give you a weekend show? Fine. Then we will,” he said.
Two months later, he and I stood on the Essence Festival Empowerment stage – in New Orleans – where I was that day’s host, and announced the fall launch of Washington Watch, a weekly Sunday morning news program.
For four years that show ran on TV One, and we developed an intensely loyal audience, who were so happy to see a Black network speak to issues concerning Black people. Washington Watch won multiple awards for TV One; we interviewed major newsmakers; and introduced the world to a number of smart, talented African Americans who mainstream cable network would have never put on. Folks like Angela Rye, Paul Butler, Christopher Metzler, were frequent panelists, and the show was the first paid contributor gig for April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks.
Everyone talks about the success of Ava Duvernay today, but her first national television interview as a director for the movie “I Will Follow,” was on TV One’s Washington Watch.
By 2012, my mentor and friend, Johnathan Rodgers, had retired from TV One, and I told his successor, Wonya Lucas, that it was time for us to do a daily news show. We were at the upfonts in NY and I said this could work.
Later that year, Alfred Liggins and I sat down in New York where he told me of his vision to do a daily news show. Initially, it was going to be a vehicle for Rev. Al Sharpton, and the plan was to simulcast his midday radio show and I would be a contributor to that. I wasn’t happy about losing Washington Watch after four years, but I saw the need for a daily show.
As our conversations continued, it evolved into a morning show that I would helm. Alfred wanted to create some synergy between the company’s website, NewsOne.com, so the show was called NewsOneNow, which became the first morning news show launched by a Black cable network.
We were bold. Honest. And Unapologetically Black. For the first time, African Americans got to wake up and see news for them and by them. Just like with Washington Watch, we carved our own niche, become the go-to place for Black newsmakers, politicians, and pundits. When you turn on cable TV today and see Lauren Victoria Burke, David Swerdlick, Shermichael Singleton, Laura Coates, Scott Bolden, Monique Pressley, Yodit Tewolde, Paris Dennard, and a long line of others, it was at TV One where they got a chance to shine the most, even guest host a national TV show. We made that happen.
For four years we showed the power and the brilliance of African Americans in many areas, including news, entertainment, culture, sports. You name it, we covered it.
Unfortunately, on Dec. 21, 2018, we broadcast our last edition of NewsOneNow. When I sat in Alfred’s office and he told me of the cancellation, anger, bitterness and sadness didn’t consume me. I felt deeply for our staff losing their jobs, but I also understood that this is the reality of our business, and we had a helluva four years.
Over the last eight months, we’ve had numerous discussions about what I would do next with TV One. As that was happening, I was planning my own daily digital show, #RolandMartinUnfiltered, to take advantage of this new media world we are now living in.
So with much sadness, but tremendous gratitude, my tenure at TV One comes to a close on Friday, Aug. 31.
I am eternally grateful for all of the folks at TV One who I have encountered over the last 13 years. To be on the frontlines of watching a Black cable network become one of the fastest growing in history has been eye opening. I’ve learned so much about this business, and have truly grown as a journalist.
Why did I never leave TV One when I was at CNN, even when I asked to give it up? Because TV One gave me a chance to speak my truth – unimpeded. I served as managing editor of Washington Watch and NewsOneNow, given final authority over all news matters. There were no censors to run things by. Johnathan, and later presidents Wonya Lucas, Brad Siegel, as well as Alfred Liggins and our founder, Cathy Hughes, trusted me to set the standard for our editorial voice. TV One gave me a level of freedom my peers at broadcast and cable networks have never had. I never did take that lightly.
If I wanted to do the show on remote, and it worked financially, we did it. We never allowed the limitations of our budget to limit our thinking. We did one-hour news specials on credit, relationships, touched topics others would ignore, and lived the credo of the different TV One marketing themes: “We see Black people; living; laughing; loving” and “Represent.”
In 2013, the National Association of Black Journalists awarded me Journalist of the Year. It was Vanessa Williams of the Washington Post who nominated me for my work on highlighting voter suppression by the Republican Party, not just on CNN, but mainly through our coverage on TV One.
I’ve sat at the table in the White House with Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, and Vice President Joe Biden. All representing TV One.
I can think back fondly to interviews with Magic Johnson, Alonzo Mourning, Dwayne Wade, Paul Pierce, Charles Dutton, John Legend, Common, Issa Rae, Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., Harry Belafonte, Hank Aaron, Kerry Washington, Oprah, Maya Angelou, and so many others, all because of TV One.
It was at TV One where I got to work with some amazingly talented people. Our network staff has always been small, but intensely committed to our mission of giving Black America the best network we could, and I’m thankful to all of you.
By a crazy chance, I even go to work with my high school classmate, D’Angela Proctor, who was senior vice president of programming. How crazy is that: two Black kids who were the top two students at Jack Yates High School’s Magnet School of Communications, would help launch and grow a daily Black news morning show?
Endings are never a bad thing. They are simply a fact of life. My mission hasn’t changed. I decided to be a journalist when I was 14, and even as I turn 50 on November 14, I’m still committed to this calling. (I’m also still in the family because I will continue as senior analyst for the Tom Joyner Morning Show, which is owned by TV One’s parent company, Urban One).
I can’t thank Johnathan, Alfred and Cathy enough for letting me be, and allowing me to be the face of this network for nearly its entire existence.
One can never say never. Even though I’m launching this daily digital show and working on other projects, I may end up doing something for TV One down the line. But as for now, we’ve come to the end of a road.
All I have left to say, is thank you.
Holla!
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