King Asks TWC To Air Bounce TV In NYC, LA

Martin Luther King III, one of the co-founders of the African American-focused diginet is asking Time Warner Cable to offer the multicast network on its systems in New York and Los Angeles.

The diginet is broadcast on subchannels of WXTV New York and KMEX Los Angeles, both owned by Univision. King would like TWC to carry those signals.

In a letter to David Lange, TWC group VP, King wrote: “I am writing to you as a founder of Bounce TV — the first and only over-the-air broadcast television network for African Americans — to express my strong disappointment with Time Warner Cable’s decision to drop Bounce TV from your New York City system, as well as the lack of carriage of Bounce TV on Time Warner Cable in Los Angeles.

“The more than 14 million African-American television households in the United States are grossly underserved, having just a few dedicated cable channels and no over-the-air networks until we launched Bounce TV in 2011. The fact that African Americans watch more television than the U.S. Average and more than any other measured ethnicity makes this situation even more alarming.”

King continued: “The immediate success, growth and popularity of Bounce TV reflects how truly underserved African Americans have been by television. Time Warner Cable does carry Bounce TV in several markets and for that we are grateful.

“Yet, Time Warner Cable continues to disappoint African Americans in the two biggest cities in the United States. This does not bode well in an emerging America, a nation becoming more diverse by the day. Bounce has worked diligently to identify and grow best practices for widening the pipeline for underrepresented groups. We remain committed to do so, and are prepared to take further action if necessary, but we are hopeful that you will return Bounce TV to Time Warner Cable in Manhattan as well as add the network in Los Angeles.”