Source: WENN

Terrence Howard has been rather vocal about injustices that he believes he’s had to suffer lately. Just last week, we told you that he blamed the controversy surrounding his departure from the Iron Man saga for ruining his career. And now, the Dead Man Down actor is calling out Black media outlets and journalists for attacking his decision to marry an Asian woman. Howard expressed his plight in an interview with Hip Hollywood.

“We have a crab mentality where we try to pull each other down because of choices we make, because I chose to marry an Asian woman instead of a Black woman. I think as Black people, we have to start helping each other and congratulating each other for being morally strong and doing the right thing by that. If you dont have something nice to say, then don’t say nothing at all.”

If you recall, Howard went through a rather bitter divorce with ex-wife Michelle Ghent, that resulted in infidelity and abuse allegations against the actor. He also alleged that his ex-wife was a racist who sought to extort him with private recordings that she snagged from his personal computer. The former couple finally reached a settlement in their divorce last August.

The Academy Award nominee also hinted at a possible acting hiatus.

“I think maybe I’ve done enough. I’ve played enough in this field and I’d like to see what other mediums I can aspire towards. I feel like I would like to challenge myself.”

Terrence is an undeniably talented actor, but possibly some downtime out of the spotlight would do him some good.

Check out footage of Terrence Howard’s interview on the next page. What do you think of his claims about Black media? Were outlets too harsh when reporting on his divorce? 

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Love your Cover Girl? Nielsen just compiled a list of companies spending the most to advertise to the African-American community, and Cover Girl parent company, Procter & Gamble, has topped the list.

Still the advertising dollars companies spend on black media do not compare to the billions spent in the general market media.  “Black media receives only 2 percent of the $120 billion advertising dollars spent with general media,” reports Insight News. “The top 10 advertisers spent a total of $321,892,840 with African-American media in 2012, up 1.99 percent over 2010.”  P&G spent $75.3 million and rounding out the top three are L’Oreal ($39.9 million) and McDonald’s ($34.9 million).

According to Nielsen and the National Newspaper Publishers Association in the 2011 report “State of the African-American Consumer,” black buying power will reach $1.1 trillion by the year 2015. The prospect of making money is is driving companies to increasingly target the African-American consumer.

Here is the list of top advertisers, as reported by Black America Web:

1)   Procter & Gamble
2)    L’Oreal
3)    Johnson & Johnson
4)    General Motors
5)    Mc Donald’s
6)    Verizon
7)    U.S. Government
8)    AT&T
9)    Berkshire Hathaway (car insurance,  life insurance, annuity sales and sales of jewelry)
10)   National Amusements

Which of these products do you use? Are you more likely to use products that are advertised in black media?

Image: Shutterstock

The  National Newspaper Publishers Association (aka Black Press of America) and Nielsen have released a new report, “African-American Consumers: Still Vital, Still Growing 2012 Report,” finding that black consumers turn to black media outlets to find items of relevance to them. This may seem like a no-brainer, but the report also found that advertising in black media only represents a small portion of the amount spent on advertising as a whole. So there are great opportunities for companies to reach out to this market in places that they’re turning to for information.

“Marketers underestimate the opportunities missed by overlooking Black consumers’ frustration of not having products that meet their needs in their neighborhoods,” NNPA chairman Cloves Campbell says in this story on Politic365. “And companies that don’t advertise using Black media risk having African-Americans perceive them as being dismissive of issues that matter to Black consumers.”

The report found that an overwhelming majority, 91 percent, of blacks think black media is relevant to them. Another big majority, 81 percent, think products advertised in black media are relevant to them. And brand name items represent 82 percent of the purchased in black homes.

However, 2011 advertising in black media outlets was $2.1 billion. In the same year, $120 billion was spent on general mass media advertising. The report predicts that black buying power will total $1.1 trillion in 2015.

The study also highlights the importance of social media and online engagement to the black community. And notes that black consumers, especially older ones, tend to make more shopping trips, spending less than the broader population during each trip.

“As is true among non-Black households, the younger generation of Black households offset fewer overall shopping trips with higher per-trip spending than their older counterparts. But, in all instances, Black households spend less per trip than non-Black households,” the Nielsen blog writes. The black population is 14 percent younger than the broader population with a media age of 32 years old.

This report was timed to release during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual conference. We also wrote about the roundtable discussing the link between small business ownership and the wealth gap, which took place during this conference.
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icebergmagazine.com

by R. Asmerom

When asked by Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal about BET’s competition, Debra Lee (Chairman and CEO of BET Networks) didn’t say TV One or Magic Johnson’s soon-to-be launched network Aspire. Rather, she said the network, which is available in over 90 million homes, is competing with every media entity for eyeballs. This is the case,she says, despite the fact that advertisers try to lump Black media under one umbrella.

“We’re not a monolithic audience. Sometimes advertisers treat us that way, or other networks treat us that way,” she told Marketplace. “So we try to have a well-rounded programming slate to be attractive to male, female, different income levels, different educational levels.”

Lee has been credited with directing BET to embrace more original programming. In the past two years, the network has unveiled to original programs including “The Game,” which it picked up after CW cancelled it, and “Reed Between The Lines.” Although she explains that BET is not striving to be the “PBS” for Black Americans, she does communicate that it does consider the challenges facing Black America and integrates realistic images in their programming.

Since taking the helm at BET seven years ago, the network has undergone a transformation of sorts and being hailed as a more well-rounded network than it was previously when it embraced round-the-clock music=related programming.

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We may not need more black people on TV or in magazines to validate our worth but that doesn’t mean we still wouldn’t like to see a lot more color a little bit of everywhere. Finally, a new coalition of leaders in black media is putting their money where their mouth and not just talking about the need for more images of us in television advertising, but trying to force advertisers to do so.

The New York Times reports:

BET Networks, Black Enterprise, Johnson Publishing (the publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines), the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and others will join with media-buying agencies to introduce a campaign intended to educate advertisers about the importance of black media and its increasingly deep-pocketed audience.

Called #InTheBlack (using the Twitter hash tag), the campaign will begin with print advertisements in major newspapers (including The New York Times) and trade magazines like Broadcasting & Cable and Adweek. It will expand to a long-term joint effort that includes social media and direct outreach to marketers.

The Times points out the irony of so many outlets these days pushing to create Spanish-language channels, radio, TV, and print promotions due to the population shift, while simultaneously overlooking the $1.2 trillion projected buying power the black community is expected to have by 2015.

Pointing out that most advertisers figure black people will get the message anyway without being specifically targeted, Debra L. Lee, chief executive at BET Networks, said:

“Any well-developed media plan should include both [generic and targeted advertising]. Black media has a special connection to black audiences.”

Hopefully this #InTheBlack effort will penetrate the masses. It’s great to see us doing more than complaining about this well known problem. What do you think?

Brande Victorian is the news and operations editor for madamenoire.com. Follow her on twitter @Be_Vic.

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urbanradionation.com

For too long, advertisers have ignored the tremendous buying power of the African American community. But now black media is standing up for their consumers. According to African Business Review, Viacom owned BET, has joined with HuffPost BlackVoices, Black Enterprise, Burrell Communications, Cable Advertising Bureau, Essence Communications, GlobalHue, Inner City Broadcasting Corporation, KJLH Radio, Johnson Publishing Company, National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, Nielsen, North Star Group, National Newspaper Publishers Association, One Solution, Radio One, TV One, Interactive One, Reach Media, Steve Harvey Radio, TheGrio, The Root, The Africa Channel, UniWorld Group, Vibe Media and Walton Isaacson for the first ever black media and marketing consortium.

Together, the companies will speak to advertisers to raise awareness of the present marketing opportunities in the black community and foster a sense of urgency around this community’s economic ability.

“We are excited to partner with some of the nation’s most influential media and marketing groups to highlight the growing economic opportunity of the Black marketplace,” Debra Lee, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for BET Networks said in a press statement. “As a collective, we are better positioned to demonstrate the value of targeting the black consumer audience and partnering with leading brands to help them succeed.”

Black household earning have increased by 64 percent from 200 to 2009. African Americans possess a buying power of nearly one trillion annually and represent over 42 million strong consumers. According to the Nielsen 2011 State of the African American Consumer, if African Americans were a country, they would represent the 16^th largest economy in the world.

African Americans top all other ethnic groups in the spending on automobiles, wine & spirits, baby care products, groceries, health and beauty products, personal care products, apparel, electronics, movies and travel and entertainment.

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Sometimes I think Black folks are in a no win situation.  We are damned if we do and we are damned if we don’t.

Take for instance, Debra Lee. Man, the last couple of years have been very bad for her. After taking over the helm in 2005 as H.N.I.C from Robert Johnson, who sold the company and the integrity of BET to Viacom, Lee has been charged with taking all the original programming and transforming it into a steady diet of offensive stereotypes and cheap entertainment for the TV watching audience. And after successfully producing one of the worst Michael Jackson tributes ever during the even more shame-worthy BET awards, Lee topped herself by following through with the premieres of Frankie and Nette and the Tiny and Toya shows.

The backlash came swift. Letters and blog posts were written, anti-B.E.T songs were produced and boycotts were organized.  Folks around the blogosphere expressed their disdain for BET and its usage of hyper sexualized, misogynistic, materialism under the flagship of Black entertainment. They pleaded with Lee to do us a solid and start producing more relevant programming, which presents Black folks in a more positive light.

Hearing the concerns, Lee and BET havebeen trying to get its act together, albeit slowly. Recently it has taken a new approach to improve the brand by researching what their viewers wanted to see.  Of course, the answer was more family-oriented programming. In the last decade or so, the black family has been largely missing from prime time and more than anything, viewers wanted to bring back the golden era of black television which is best represented byThe Cosby Show. So being good stewards to the Black community, BET created a lineup of more family-oriented shows such as “Reed Between the Lines” and “Let’s Stay Together.”

And so far it appears to be working as “Let’s Stay Together,” a romantic comedy involving a contemporary relationships that debuted in January, has averaged around 3 million viewers, helping the network score its biggest ratings in history. And the premiere of “Reed between the Lines,” a new show starring Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Tracee Ellis Ross doing their best Cosby Show impersonation, has pulled in solid numbers since its debut. It seems that things are starting to turn around for the station, and more importantly Lee, who has certainly taken a beating in the Black press.  Not so fast.

Despite BET’s noble attempt to change the face of Black entertainment, its wildly popular sister-network VH1 continues to capture the attention of Black America. It first started out with shows like Flavor of Love and I Love New York and has now expanded into Basketball Wives, Basketball Wives LA and Love & Hip Hop. Both Wives shows and Love & Hip-Hop have been a ratings bonanza for the station.  The network released stats showing that the season finale of Basketball Wives LA drew over 4 million viewers. And the second season premier of “Love & Hip Hop” scored equally high in the 18-49 demographic, making it the most watched episode out of the two seasons. In short, the tawdry agenda of seeing black folks backbiting and backstabbing, which is taboo on B.E.T, has become perfectly acceptable must-see TV on VH1.

(The founder of the migthy gossip site Mediatakeout.com is now applying his business savvy to a reality web series called “MediaTakeOut Presents: First Date.” Fred Mwangaguguhunga (his name is Kenyan) is working iwth Fisher Kligenstein Films to produce the “PG-rated” show. As one of the most popular gossip sites on the web, avaraging 300 million page views per month, expanding the MediaTakeOut brand was a no brainer, Mwangaguguhunga told BlackEnterprise.com.

Production on 52 episodes, which range from 6-10 minutes has already wrapped and will roll out weekly on the site.  Mwangaguguhunga believes that the show will be successful not only because of MediaTakeOut’s built-in audience but also because the 18-25 year old demographic wants to consume more video content online.

“You look at all the demographics—the under-25 market is watching less physical TV on a television. They’re watching more on their computer, on YouTube, on Hulu, on iTunes,” he told Black Enterprise. “The question is which company is going to be best suited to take advantage of it. We’re coming in early and making aggressive steps to be that company.”

Read More…

By Dreux Dougall

You might call these people visionary artists, as they are able to craft their media communications so well. You might call them thieves in the night, because they are able to steal your attention so quickly. But we call them “multimedia mavens”: the top African-American writers, TV personalities, activists, speakers, and techies that dominate their fields. In their mission to broadcast their work into your homes, onto your phones, and into your lives they have used social media, radio, publishing, television and more — truly, to use an old phrase, “any means necessary.” These 10 stars have rocketed to the top of the list of people you must watch in the coming years for their creative and intelligent use of multifarious media forms to uplift and entertain the masses. These are the Top 10 Black Multimedia Mavens to Watch.

Keli Goff
Novelist, Political Writer, Blogger & TV Pundit
“While I enjoy working in multiple platforms (blogs, books and television), I love the immediacy of writing online,” the multi-talented media maven told The Atlanta Post. “It’s a really great feeling when I highlight a particular issue in my columns and hear from people who say they wrote a letter to a member of Congress, or signed a petition or gave money to a cause because I highlighted it in my work. On days when I hear that I feel like I’ve done my job and maybe, just maybe helped contribute something positive to the world.” This is the mission of Keli Goff: to bring change to the world one blog post or television appearance at a time. Goff set her sights on being a political pundit and writer back in 2008, and has seen great success as the author of the best-seller “Party Crashing.” This ground-breaking tome chronicles the rise of Obama’s youth supporters and opened doors for her as an analyst on shows like “Anderson Cooper 360″ and “The Dylan Ratigan Show.” Her biggest accomplishment so far? Finishing her exciting first novel, “The GQ Candidate,” extending her media reach into the field of fiction.

One of reasons cited for why African Americans choose not to pursue a career in technology is that they rarely see people who look like them involved in computing. I can certainly identify with the research. In a career that spans 25 years as a software engineer, I can count on one hand the number of African Americans I have worked with during that time.

While it is true that African Americans are severely under represented in computing, there are role models in technology that can help our young people to identify with these fields. The African American community must do a better job of not only showing our young people current role models, but we must also do better at informing our young people that Africans as well as African Americans have played a role in the evolution of the computing industry. This is key to closing the digital divide, and traditional Black media can play a significant role in bringing this information to our communities.

As a black man who believes in supporting Black-owned businesses I have patronized all forms of traditional Black media most of my adult life to include networks such as BET and TVOne, print magazines such as Ebony and Essence, as well as local, national, and satellite radio. With the exception of XM Radio’s The Mario Armstrong Show, which focuses on helping folks to embrace a digital lifestyle, and Black Enterprise magazine there is scant mention of the of technology and its importance in the lives of African Americans.

I do not believe in complaining about a problem, I believe in taking action. I wrote to newspapers as well as magazines and suggested that space be allocated to provide this critical information to the black community. I offered to provide the information free of charge as a service to the community and I made the case that at this point in our history, making sure our people embrace technology as we move forward in the 21st century is CRUCIAL to our survival – of this, there is no doubt.

Most of the organizations that I wrote simply did not respond. A few others responded with a “thanks, but no thanks”, and a couple offered me the opportunity to bridge the gap. This is simply not good enough. What is the reason for the resistance? How do we expect our young people to view technology as important if we are not discussing it in our media? Why do most of these outlets not consider the topic of technology just as important as finance, spirituality, or health?

Most often when there is a mention of technology in Black media it is coming from a consumer perspective. National publications may make mention of a great new iPhone app that you can purchase, but there is no mention of the 2 sisters at Spelman College who won the AT&T sponsored mobile application development competition or that Morehouse College hosted a National Business Plan competition that was focused on students submitting smart phone application ideas. And even when they were mentioned in a few outlets, there is not another such story for weeks or months. We need a steady diet.

Those 2 sisters and the young men who participated in the competition at Morehouse could provide wonderful role models for our youth. We have the role models, what is lacking is the distribution of this information to our communities. What is lacking is the coverage of these technology-centric stories. Who better to fill this void than our beloved traditional black media.

 Kai Dupé is a doctoral student at Pepperdine University where he is conducting research on Why African American Males Are Underrepresented in Computing. Kai can be reached by email at kai.dupe@kaidupe.com or by visiting his website at www.WhereAreBlacskInTechnology.com