Talking TV: TheGrio Casts A Wide Net For Black Audiences

TheGrio is having a growth spurt. The Byron Allen-owned, African American-targeted media brand recently announced the launch of a podcast network to complement its existing news and entertainment website, apps, OTT and OTA channels, and more video news and podcast content is in the offing.

Geraldine Moriba is the SVP of news and entertainment for TheGrio, and in this Talking TV conversation she explains that the brand aims to distinguish itself from competitors with more thoughtful news and lifestyle content, along with a robust presence across multiple platforms.

Episode transcript below, edited for clarity.

Michael Depp: TheGrio is an African American-focused media platform owned by Byron Allen and centered on amplifying Black culture. Until recently, that platform focused on video centric news, lifestyle and entertainment content. But this spring, it expanded with the launch of TheGrio Podcast Network, which includes original and aggregated content.

I’m Michael Depp, and this is Talking TV, the podcast that brings you smart conversations about the business of broadcasting. This week, a conversation with Geraldine Moriba, SVP of news and entertainment for TheGrio. We’ll talk about TheGrio’s ambitions and how it’s evolving. We’ll be right back.  

Welcome, Geraldine Moriba, to Talking TV.

Geraldine Moriba: Hello, Michael.

Geraldine, TheGrio has actually been around since back in 2009 when it was launched originally by NBC News, and it got folded into MSNBC News until finally Byron Allen bought it in 2016. From a content perspective, how has TheGrio evolved in that time?

So, TheGrio has always had the same mission, which is to amplify Black culture, basically everything connected to African Americans, whether we are focusing on entertainment stories, news and information, stories, sports. But that mission has never changed. What has changed, and what we’re doing now is trying to reach African Americans, Black people globally, wherever they are, every way that they consume information.

So, we want to reach them on their mobile devices. We’ve got a new app. We want to reach them with audio if all they do is listen to podcasts. We want to reach them through our website, which is still our number one platform that gets the most traffic. However, people consume information, we want to be there and reach them. And I will point out that one of the reasons we’re doing this is more and more the way we consume information changes based on our age, demographics and our habits. And so, we don’t want to just get one portion of Black people. We want to get everybody.

I’m assuming the name comes from grio, which is a West African storyteller, a sort of a repository of history.

Yes.

What then, is TheGrio’s value proposition to consumers right now? How do you distinguish it from other African American-geared news and entertainment brands?

So, I think that a lot of other Black media brands — which are great and it’s great to be up against them — they focus more on entertainment content and sports content and talk and celebrities. And we of course, have entertainment and we, of course, have celebrities on all platforms all the time.

But we do something that nobody else does. We present every day relevant, important news stories. We present lifestyle stories in a really in-depth way. We present opinions. And what is different about what we’re doing is we’re not, for instance, we’re not trying to be a Black TMZ and entertain and titillate. There are enough people doing that.

We’re trying to add analysis. We’re trying to add thoughtful engagement with people as they’re doing things as they’re happening. And we really want to focus on the events that are having a pronounced impact on Black audiences globally. And we believe our responsibility is to empower, to provide value and just to reflect the lived experiences and interests of Black people through our digital and streaming platforms.

On the video side, what’s the context in which the news content is iterating right now? Is it news shows, magazine shows? What’s the form?

Right now, it’s video shorts and we do have video series, but we we focus on short video.

TheGrio TV launched, I believe, in January 2021. But the platform seems to have always been, or to this point, video oriented. Is that what you consider to be the primary platform for TheGrio at this point, or is it the case that there isn’t a primary platform? It just it is what it needs to be for different audiences, as you were saying earlier.

I actually think right now and it’s still it’s always been the primary platform for our largest audience is the website, and that’s where most people get great content. But I’m predicting you’re going to see in a year or two, the primary platform is going to become our streaming platforms, OTT and the mobile app, because that’s just where people are getting free information, free TV.

So, you mentioned Grio TV, which is available, and that’s an OTA platform for that. That is primarily a movie channel. There’s lots of TV shows and movies on that channel. In fact, it has a library of over 1,500 movies that we show throughout the year. The streaming app allows you to pick and choose what you want to see. And again, it’s totally free.

So, we’re predicting that when you combine all of that free, great content with all the news and information that we have from the website. Now with the Additional Black Podcast Network, it is going to become the number one point of entry for TheGrio.

On the subject of that podcast network, which launched in May, to clarify what that is, this is production, distribution or both?

It’s both. So, what we’re doing is we’re doing it in phases. Right now, we’re in the launch phase and we’ve launched two podcasts so far. We actually have eight original podcasts scheduled all the way through October, and it’s more or less every couple of weeks, two or three weeks, they’ll be another podcast. And the idea is by launching them this way, we’ll continue to build our audience.

And once we get all of our original content out and as we’re doing that, we’re already engaging in conversations with Black podcast creators and asking them to allow us to share their content, too. And that way it’ll become a destination that’s not limited to the podcasts we create, but we’ll also distribute everybody else’s content, because if you think about it, when you’re looking for Black content and you go to any of the other distribution platforms, whether it’s Apple or Spotify or whichever, to find content that is about or by Black people, it’s actually rather challenging.

If you search the word “Black,” tons of stuff comes up. If it’s not that easy. I know I depend personally on word of mouth to find new content and there’s a lot of great content out there globally. So, what we want to do is become a repository where there are hundreds, if not thousands of podcasts, but they’re all specifically by and for Black people.

You anticipated what I want to ask you next about, why a whole network as opposed to just producing, say, a podcast or a series of podcasts. You want to become the location to which people go to find this kind of curated content, then?

Absolutely. And the content we’re starting with, by the way, is really fabulous. Like, it’s really exciting content. And the strategy is if we create this and we demonstrate how well produced and the quality of the work that we’re delivering is impressive, the more people will want to be with us because there’s an adjacency factor. If this is really great, then this must be great, too. And that’s the strategy.

Are any of these podcasts that are out now or are in the pipeline going to do double duty as video podcasts for you? Do they have that kind of utility?

Yeah, most of them will also have video. In fact, one coming down the road by Toure is going to have animation. So, they all have video. There’s one coming out quite soon by Christina Greer, who’s a political scientist, and she’s actually doing a game show. Her podcast is going to be around Black trivia and Black History, and it’s in a game show format. So, we’re having fun with the podcast. We’re trying to be nontraditional and just push that envelope with creativity a little bit.

All right. I’m just making notes to animate Talking TV, add a game show element, make more fun…

Exactly.

I did try a game show once with Jerry O’Connell. We played Pictionary and it didn’t go well for him.

Oh, no. Well, congrats to you.

Thank you. Where is TheGrio available now on streaming?

Right now, it’s available if you have a mobile device. You can download our app in the app store on any kind of a mobile device so you can get it that way. But OTT is available on every platform that distributes OTT streaming content. So, Roku, Apple, everywhere.

Byron Allen is very passionate on the subject of Black-owned media, specifically the need for it when there’s such a dearth in broadcasting, particularly in television. How does TheGrio align with or reflect his ambitions?

I mean, the reality is we shouldn’t have to create a separate destination to find all of this content. It should be available wherever you consume information. But the truth is, having been in this business for a long time, reporting on Black people is often an afterthought or happens when there’s a tragedy or something extreme. We want to make sure that we are sharing stories of “Did you hear that?”

We’re sharing stories when there is a tragedy and we want to be there first as that stories are breaking and add context, cultural context, information, context. But we also want to share the good moments, too, and the inspirational moments. We want to empower and just be really relevant as we inform Black audiences.

And I do want to point out is we’re also making sure that we’re telling stories about Black people wherever they are, not just within the borders of the United States, but more and more, we’re telling global Black stories, too.

Now, you’ve said so far, the news content is iterating primarily in this short-form content. But you keep coming back to news.

For video, too.

Is a newscast — an explicitly organized news program, a half hour or an hour — in the trajectory for TheGrio?

Yeah, thanks for mentioning that. We are already piloting multiple shows and perhaps as soon as Q4 this year, perhaps Q1 next year, you’ll start to see those shows appear both on Grio TV and on our streaming platforms. But right now, the immediate launch is the Black Podcast Network, and the shows are coming.

Are there any synergies that you have with any of Byron Allen’s other media properties, specifically stuff from entertainment studios or his local TV stations? Are you doing any content sharing or is that in your roadmap?

Yeah, it actually happens every single day when we do stories that have to do with the climate or outdoors. We have a series coming up called The Great Outdoors. It’s about Black people doing outdoor sports, and right now it’s summer, so there are outdoor summer activities. That series will be picked up by The Weather Channel.

We had a story that went up for Juneteenth, and it was specifically about a young woman, 19 years old, who was walking on her own across the entire Canadian portion of the Underground Railroad, the trail. And she was doing it on her own and depending on the kindness of strangers, to let her spend the night at each spot she did. We did that story. And then it also ran on The Weather Channel.

Local Now is another app that’s in Byron’s Allen Media Group family, and Local Now content often appears on our platform, and they often use ours.

There’s another app called HBCU Go. With that one we often amplify their content, and they do that with ours as well. In fact, tomorrow they’re launching a series called Spades. It’s about the game, spades card game. And it’s great. It involves four players, and each episode will be four players playing the game competitively, but also talking about serious topics and not so serious topics. It’s pretty funny.

So, lots going on obviously at TheGrio. What else is in the growth trajectory? More original content? What else have you got in the works?

Well, I think the one thing that you might not know is that we’re also in the events space as of this year. Right after the White House Correspondents Dinner, this was our first event that happened in April. We had a reception, and the reception was called A Seat at the Table. And we held it because we wanted to honor all of the Black reporters who have worked with the White House, but who were there on a daily basis reporting on politics in D.C. And we had a reception and by not just my opinion, but many people who attended, it was one of the best receptions of the night and was so popular, in fact, that we’re going to have it again next year.

But we’re also right now developing an award show that will be coming out in early November. We’re recording it and releasing it, and we’re going to be celebrating Black people who are at the top of their game and doing things that are proving that we can be successful, we can be leaders of business. And so that award show is coming out in the fall.

And we have another series. It’s going to be an interview series called Masters of the Game. And again, this is in the spirit of doing content that people can use. So, the idea it’ll be a monthly series and it’ll be a one-on-one conversation with someone who at that moment is at the pinnacle of their own creative entrepreneurship, scientific, whatever their specialty is, they’re at the top of their game.

Very interesting. You’ve got a lot to keep track of and it’ll be interesting to watch as this all coalesces, as the podcast network takes off and to see how it’s connecting with audiences. We’re out of time, alas, so, I want to thank you, Geraldine Moriba of TheGrio, for joining me today. Thanks so much.

Michael Depp. Alas, it’s too short. I really enjoyed our conversation. I hope we get to do this again.

Me, too. Cheers. And thanks to all of you for watching and listening. See you next time.

Take care.