TV One Stereotypes

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Second, ads on the cable network TV One attract African-American viewers, a group that has been historically overlooked by broadcast television. Sadly, many broadcast television series and commercials do not feature African-Americans in leading roles. TV One depends on its network advertisements with prominent African-American celebrities to attract more viewers of that demographic. The channel’s website provides more information about its impact: “Launched on Martin Luther King’s birthday in January 2004, TV One … now serves 57 million households. Combining hit sitcoms, big studio movies, irreverent reality television and newsworthy specials, TV One delivers real life and entertainment programming from the African American point of view. TV …show more content…
One such plug, which aired during the December 2017 premiere of an episode of the channel’s true-crime series For My Man, showcases a plethora of winter premieres on the network. Set to the tune of electronic dance music (“TV One”), the ad first promotes the documentary series Unsung, which, according to the network’s website, “sheds much-deserved light on some of the most influential, talented and, somehow, forgotten R&B, soul, funk, hip hop, disco and gospel artists of the last 30 years” (“About Unsung”). A prime example of African-American musicians not receiving the credit they so rightly deserve includes white artists covering their work, profiting from it, and later garnering even more fame than the singers who originally performed the songs. Second, the commercial plugs the television film Behind the Movement, “a fast-paced retelling of how Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat launched the history-making Montgomery Bus Boycott” (“About the TVOne Original Movie”). There was a previous television film about Rosa Parks that aired in 2002, but this new movie suggests an untold story of the African-American civil rights movement. And third, the ad promotes a telecast of the 49th annual National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Image Awards, which the organization claims is