Is Jacksonville businessman Shad Khan a ruthless, cynical unethical businessman, pulling the plug on the Black News Network, firing 230+ employees without any explanation, severance, or other benefits?
You tell me.
Is the BNC being closed in retaliation for BNC women employees filing a class action lawsuit, alleging harassment and gender discrimination?
What do you reckon?
Should our neighbor to the north, the City of Jacksonville, Florida, spend any more of their taxpayers money on oligarch Shad Khan and his NFL Football franchise, the Jacksonville Jaguars?
You tell me.
- Billionaire Shad Khan must compensate his fired BNC employees and provide severance payments.
- Otherwise, his actions are a badge of fraud and he should not be trusted any longer,
From Los Angeles Times:
Shad Khan’s Black News Channel is shutting down
Black News Channel, the TV news service launched in early 2020 to be a voice for people of color, is ceasing operations Friday afternoon.
A memo to employees from BNC’s chief executive, Princell Hair, confirmed The Times’ earlier report of the closure plans. The company is filing for bankruptcy, and live programming will end at 2 p.m. PDT/5 p.m. EDT. The channel will air repeats for the rest of the month.
The Tallahassee, Fla.-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.
The announcement means BNC’s staff of 230 — a vast majority of whom are people of color — are out of work. They have been told benefits will last through next week and there will be no severance, according to one person briefed on the plans.
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 there were no takers. The company endured several rounds of layoffs in recent months.
“During the past few months, we have endured very painful workforce reductions at all levels of the network as we worked to achieve our financial goal of a break-even business,” Princell said in the memo obtained by The Times.
“This has forced all of you to do more with less, and your contributions have been remarkable. Unfortunately, due to challenging market conditions and global financial pressures, we have been unable to meet our financial goals, and the timeline afforded to us has run out.”
The channel reached more than 50 million cable and satellite households, but was unable to generate a significant audience.
The entity entered the cable news landscape at a time when consumers were shifting away from traditional TV. Most video-based TV start-ups 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
From Tallahassee Democrat:
Black News Channel — which shut down operations on Friday, just two years after making a splashy debut — has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Florida.
In its Monday filing, the Tallahassee-based network listed $10 million-$50 million in liabilities, and estimated between 200 and 999 creditors are owed money.
“They filed for bankruptcy faster than they paid their employees the money they’re owed,” one former employee told TheWrap on Tuesday. “I received a partial payment this morning for two weeks of work. They still owe me for another week.”
That former staffer was one of roughly 230 who were let go last Friday when the channel ceased operations; the network plans to air repeats for the rest of this month.
The hiring spree came as Shad Khan, the billionaire owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, injected a reported $50 million dollars into the network and became the principal investor. Despite the infusion of cash, insiders told TheWrap little of it was used for marketing. Instead, BNC’s management team looked to the media to get the word out, including the Tallahassee Democrat, which in September 2021 published a profileof Hair with the headline: “Black News Channel thriving under new President and CEO Princell Hair.”
Twelve weeks later — in December 2021 — the network began laying off dozens of employees.
BNC was also hit with a class-action lawsuit filed by 13 former and current female employees alleging discrimination and a “sexist” workplace (executives denied the accusations).
A Nielsen ratings analysis compiled by TheWrap found of 124 cable news channels in 2021, BNC came in 123rd with an average of 4,000 viewers on any given show. Fox News was No. 1 with an average 2.361 million primetime viewers each evening.
Last Thursday, the network’s human resources department sent out an email saying employees would not be paid as scheduled the following day. “The March 25 payroll deposit will be delayed. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause,” said the memo from human resources VP, Nicole Collins. “We are actively working to resolve this matter quickly, and will advise you with an update as soon as possible.”
On March 25, BNC staffers learned the channel had reached the end of its journey. As employees were notified by phone that the channel was ceasing operations, Hair sent out a memo to staffers saying he was “saddened and disappointed.”
“During the past few months, we have endured very painful workforce reductions at all levels of the network as we worked to achieve our financial goal of a break-even business. This has forced all of you to do more with less, and your contributions have been remarkable,” Hair said in the memo obtained by TheWrap. “Unfortunately, due to challenging market conditions and global financial pressures, we have been unable to meet our financial goals, and the timeline afforded to us has run out.”
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.
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