New Black Channel Mixes Old Shows, New Documentaries

PASADENA, Calif. _ If you’ve stumbled across TV One, the second major cable channel aimed at African-Americans, you’ve probably already reached one conclusion: This is no BET wannabe.

TV One, recently added to Time Warner Cable on its digital tier, is the black channel for grown-ups. You won’t find reality shows about dorm life on TV One or a hip-hop knockoff of the MTV Music Awards. It doesn’t air music videos obsessed with bling and booty. It has a cooking show, a new financial advice show (with Michelle Singletary) and coming soon, documentaries and new dramas.

For Johnathan Rodgers, the former head of Discovery Networks, the contrast between BET and TV One is as obvious as the need for TV One.

“African-Americans watch more television than does the general population,” Rodgers told a room of TV critics Tuesday. “And most African-Americans are dissatisfied with what’s currently being offered.”

And by “most” he means the viewers, old and young, who want more than BET.

Rodgers brought along five guests who will embody the look and feel of his channel this year. All are subjects of upcoming documentaries on TV One _ newsy programs like “Dateline,” but with a black perspective.

Monte Harris and Rose Lewis, plastic surgeons, were on hand to dispense cringe-inducing information about the kind of cosmetic procedures black people are having these days.

“Over the next 10 years the fastest-growing segment of people in the United States that are pursuing cosmetic surgery are people of African descent,” Harris said.

There was David Talbert, the king of the “gospel theater,” dismissed as “the chitlin circuit” by the late August Wilson and other playwrights, but undeniably popular among black consumers. Going to see one of his plays, Talbert said, is a little like watching TV and talking back to it _ only here, the actors can hear the audience’s reactions, and that fuels the play’s energy.

“And if you show up late, which is customary for the audience,” Talbert said, “it’s OK to lean next to you and say, `Did I miss anything?’ “

That sounds a little bit like a press tour. After I returned from the concierge desk, having solved the Case of the Missing Laptop, I asked a colleague what I’d missed. Turns out that a sizable contingent from the Grambling State Marching Band had just charged into the room and jolted the critics out of their slumber with a resounding wakeup call.

This was BET’s way of saying “hello” to the assembled press _ and perhaps reminding them that only one African-American-oriented channel has the marketing budget to fly in a stage full of college kids for a one-minute walk-on.

I wish I’d seen it. The rest of BET’s presentation wasn’t exciting so much as annoying, largely because the network managed, in just 45 minutes, to commit the three deadly sins of press tour: (1) hogging almost the entire session and leaving the critics sitting passively _ well, more passively than usual _ instead of asking questions; (2) letting the panelists ask questions of each other, which is what we’re there to do; and (3) planting questions in the audience for the few minutes that remained for Q & A. This ruse was uncovered by an intrepid trade reporter who was handed a slip of paper with a softball query for the Grambling band just before the session started.

Still, it was worth it just to hear BET tacitly acknowledge the presence of another black cable channel by announcing that it will launch a new Sunday morning talk show, “Meet the Faith,” March 19, to be hosted by CNN correspondent Carlos Watson. The show has promise: Watson said he will travel the country, bringing together newsmakers and ministers for lively discussion on current affairs.

Ryan Seacrest made his first public appearance since E! announced that he would lead the channel’s numerous pre-awards broadcasts, starting Monday with the Golden Globes.

Seacrest already does a morning show on L.A. radio in addition to his hosting gigs on “American Idol” and the Dick Clark New Year’s Eve special, leading his latest employer, E!’s Ted Harbert, to joke, “The man already has more jobs than Heidi Fleiss.”

(That was one of his better lines. Harbert also said the Globes’ red carpet show on E! would be displayed on a jumbo screen in Times Square, noting, “We’re very big with the homeless.”)

If nothing else, Harbert’s lack of tact was the perfect setup for Seacrest, who oozes discretion. He seems to be acquiring some gravitas, or at least the low-budget TV version of it. When the inevitable question about spending New Year’s Eve with Clark came up, he had a polished answer at the ready.

“Dick had made it very clear that he wanted to be there and he wanted to do as much as he possibly could,” Seacrest said. “I had said to him before the show, `You know, I respect you so much for what you’ve done and what you’re about to do.’

“And after the show we had a great exchange where he thanked me for being there. He thanked me for what I did on the program. And he leaned over, and he gave me a hug, and he gave me a kiss on the cheek. And it was _ it was a special moment personally.”

Janice Dickinson was anything but canned. At 50, and a veteran of both the modeling industry and some of TV’s most lurid reality shows (her drunken caper on “The Surreal Life” was one of last year’s lowlights), she has earned the right to say what she pleases.

Appearing Tuesday to promote her upcoming Oxygen show, “The Janice Dickinson Project,” she was wildly quotable. Like how she decided on her current producer, Stuart Krasnow: “I walked into Stuart’s office … and he was just playing with robots. And I was like, `This is the perfect person for me. Aren’t models all robots?’”

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Aaron Barnhart: www.tvbarn.com

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Ryan Seacrest

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