Source: Greenobles.com

Often people tune into singing competitions for the judges as much as for the amateur talent and Centric has just announced the lead judge for Apollo Live: The Empress of Soul “Gladys Knight”.

Putting a new twist on an old show, Apollo Live, produced by Jamie Fox and hosted by Tony Rock, marks the Apollo Theater’s legendary return to television after the successful 21-year run of the popular “Showtime at the Apollo”.  It will be taped in front of a live audience at the Theater.

Gladys will be judging with Doug E. Fresh and Michael Bivins of New Edition and Bell Biv DeVoe. Not exactly J.Lo, Christina Aguilera or Anthony Hamilton, but talent shows are known to tap veterans like Steven Tyler and Paula Abdul to judge. The seven-time Grammy award winner, Gladys, is an excellent choice for Centric.

I’m curious that BET, Centric’s parent company, didn’t pick at least one current artists as a judge in an effort to appeal to a younger audience the way Duets got Kelly Clarkson and The Voice hired Adam Levine or even X-Factor picked Britney Spears. There is no shortage of black musicians who we’d love to see judging one of these talent shows.

Centric targets a different demographic though, so it’ll be entertaining to watch these veterans’ responses to any young contestants who happen to emulate the popstars of today.

What does the winner get? Centric told the Associated Press that the reward for the series’ winner has not been determined.

There were many fans of Showtime at the Apollo, and it would be great if “Apollo Live” does for Centric ratings-wise now what American Idol did for FOX in 2001.

Guess we’ll have to see!

Will you be watching Gladys Knight and Apollo Live?

Follow Alissa on Twitter @AlissaInPink

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Source: superslice.com

Centric, the grown and Hot side of BET will air a documentary on the life of fallen hip hop legend, Heavy D.

The documentary will include personal memories of the “Overweight Lover” from his co-workers, friends and family. There are also clips of some of his more memorable performances as well.

Check out some clips from the film below:

Be Inspired: The Life of Heavy D [Preview Clip 3] from Centric TV on Vimeo.

The documentary, Be Inspired: The Life of Heavy D  will air on Sunday, February 26 at 11P/10C..

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Hey, did you ever have the chance to watch that show Centric used to have called, Model City? No? Oh, okay. Well, if you had watched it, you would have had the chance to check out the very scrumptious Wendell Lissimore on the short-run series. Once called the “It boy,” Wendell has covered many fashion magazines, shooting for massive high-fashion brand Hermes and others, and he has made us drool with his love for speedo adorned photo shoots (check those abs, honey!). Now it’s time we introduce you to the hot tottie if you weren’t a fan of the show before, and find out the obvious reasons why all the brothers on there were envious of Mr. Lissimore.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a rough week for Matthew Knowles. First his divorce to Tina was finalized, now Radio One has banned all music acts who are associated with him.

The ban is part of TV One’s suit against BET, MTV, and Music World Music for violating its exclusive rights to the Essence Music Festival. Mathew Knowles’ Music World Music company brokered the deal for the Essence Music Festival broadcast with TV One and his company is being accused of re-issuing the content to BET, MTV and BET’s Centric Network despite TV One’s four-year exclusivity agreement.

Now, according to EURweb, TV One’s sister company, Radio One, has pulled all of Knowles’ Music World  songs and artists from their radio stations nationwide.

“All Radio One personnel were told to pull all Music World artists out of rotation immediately and indefinitely!  We were told that the mandate came straight from Ms. Hughes and that there would be ramifications for anyone playing or mentioning a Music World artist or song on air,” an anonymous Radio One employee told them.

Radio One owns at least 12 gospel stations across the country and Music World Gospel has a strong roster of artists, including Juanita Bynum, Trin-I-Tee 5:7, Brian Courtney Wilson, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, Micah Stampley and BET’s “Sunday Best” winners Le’Andria Johnson and Amber Bullock.

Radio One has also pulled music by Destiny’s Child and other previous songs released in conjunction with Music World but the ban has not directly impacted newer solo releases by Beyonce, Kelly Rowland, or Michelle Williams who terminated their management agreements prior to the suit.

Looks like Beyonce and Kelly got out of there just in time.

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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(The Wrap) — The announcement that Martin Luther King III and others will launch a new broadcast network catering to African-Americans begs the question of whether there’s room for another such network alongside BET.  The better question: Why aren’t there more already?   As broadcast networks have failed to keep pace with African-American viewers’ desire for shows that speak directly them, one of television’s most reliable audiences has increasingly turned elsewhere.  Bounce TV, which will debut in the fall, believes that creates plenty of opportunity to compete with BET, BET’s Centric, and TV One.  ”Our audience is so desperately underserved, we think they will welcome a fourth option – and one that will be an over-the-air, broadcast network,” Bounce co-executive vice president Ryan Glover told TheWrap.

For years, the 31-year-old BET has been the only network catering specifically to African-Americans. The network, which reaches 89 million households, grew to be one of the most successful on cable.  But BET’s heavy emphasis on sexed-up hip-hop videos has alienated some viewers, especially older ones – including co-founder Sheila Johnson, who said last year she was “ashamed” of the network she and her then-husband, Bob, sold to Viacom in 2000.  TV One, whose investors include Radio One and Comcast, has tried to take advantage of the age schism by appealing to African-Americans 25 and older. Since launching in 2004 it has grown to reach about 50 million homes and become BET’s biggest competitor.

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‘Soul Train,’ the long-running syndicated black music showcase known as the hippest trip in America, has long been known for its soulful music and lively dancing, but who could forget the show’s funky trend-setting fashion?

Read more here.

by Felicia Pride

Sometimes ideas come from the least likely places. Ask Tracey Ferguson. She conceived JONES magazine, a high fashion publication aimed at affluent women of color in Houston, during a book club meeting where she and girlfriends gathered to talk lifestyle.

Just like its aspirational audience, JONES is transitioning into a national brand, after only five years in business, thanks to a November 2009 merger with The NorthStar Group. Founded by L. Londell McMillan, NorthStar is a publishing, marketing and consulting firm that also owns The Source.

Last month, the newly formed JONES venture completed a multi-faceted launch that included a national magazine, where Ferguson continues as editor-in-chief and McMillan serves as publisher, a new website, and reality television show Keeping up with the Joneses, which airs on Centric. The Atlanta Post spoke with Ferguson and McMillan about branding, business expansion, and surviving the magazine industry.

How did you execute the idea for JONES after conceiving it during book club meetings with friends?

Tracey Ferguson: We started out very small. At the time, I had a partner, a college friend of mine, who moved from Miami to Houston to help. We took a year off from work and flew back and forth to New York, took meetings, and attended conferences. We did our research to confirm that we were targeting a viable market. We hired a graphic designer to assemble a prototype so that we could visualize the look and feel of the magazine.

What kind of research did you conduct to confirm that affluent women of color were a viable market?

TF: I had worked at African American advertising agencies and my partner worked at AOL Black Voices, so we had a lot of market research data about buying power. We also used resources like Target Market News to pull together a profile of our audience and develop a media kit for the demographic we wanted to approach.

At what point did you start planning to take JONES national? And how did you implement that plan?

TF: I always wanted to grow. The original idea was to develop several regional JONES magazines in cities like Atlanta, Chicago, and Dallas so that we could take advantage of the different markets and style points while keeping the editorial germane to the area.  Then, in meeting Londell, it became compelling to launch JONES as a national brand.

L. Londell McMillan: I come from the entertainment and media space and identified JONES as a brand with national and international potential.  Look at the demographics of the African-American community. We’re close to $900 billion in annual spending. In 2010, we’ll be at $1.2 trillion, and the majority of this market is black women.

We have decided not to make JONES monthly unless the consumers determine that they want to see it that often. We may decide to publish bimonthly or quarterly. That’s under discussion.

In terms of distribution, we had a national platform in place. We are in every major state and store such as Barnes & Noble, Borders, Walgreens and CVS. Our rate based started at more than 150,000, which was a conservative number for us. We focused on our core demographic in terms of our distribution quantity. We also have orders in Europe and Middle East, so we expect to be international very soon.

What do you say those who claim that magazines are dying?

LM: We’re not just in print medium. That’s one of several of our platforms. In fashion and beauty, print is a very important medium. When women are under the dryer in the beauty salon, they want to look at something and put it in their hands.  And nowadays, they want to go online to engage with what they’ve read.

There’s never really been a high fashion publication targeted to African American women that’s national across multiple platforms and sits on the shelves next to Vogue and Elle. I still get excited about magazines and am very excited about new media. It’s sad to see so many magazines not doing well, but times are evolving and we’re evolving with them.

You also launched a new website – www.jonesmag.com – in conjunction with the magazine’s national launch. What are your goals for attracting your audience online?

LM: Our primary goal is to provide immediate, accessible, high-quality, information around travel, beauty, fashion, and style. If you’re going to be in media today and you’re going to sell your product, you have to show measureable success online and offline. It’s important that our audience will check in and support the product that we’re producing. The website will work in tandem with our social media activities and online marketing campaigns.

We want to engage this JONES woman everywhere that she can be. Currently, the website is in phase one. We have bloggers including Tracey and her cast members from Keeping up with the Joneses, as well as women like fashion icon Beverly Johnson. In phase two, we will have a broader social media community.

TF: I’m excited about the shopping aspect of the website and being able to offer women those specific items that are highlighted in the magazine.  Because the magazine was born in a book club, we want to carry on that oral tradition online where women share what we love about fashion, beauty, and travel.

BET recently had its upfronts, where the network revealed its plans for next season.  One of BET’s main channels, CENTRIC, is certainly continuing on its road to becoming what audiences have been wanting to see from BET from the start: programming that entertains and informs.

It is a refreshing balance and fans can certainly be hopeful that finally, finally, BET is getting it. Even Aaron McGruder would be hard pressed to find too much to say about its endeavors these days. Along with the BET’s new slate of programming for it’s flagship channel and web properties, CENTRIC is rolling out new shows like Vindicated. Hosted by Common, this docu-series focuses on black men and women exonerated for crimes they did not commit.

Vindicated is a great move for BET overall and certainly raise its credibility. Along with Vindicated, CENTRIC will also be rolling out The Steve Harvey Project, which will showcase the ubiquitous comedian’s dating expertise and his weekday morning show. Almost Married rounds out its slate of new programming. It is, as you may have guessed, a reality show chronicling the trials and tribulations of black love through the relationship of Latice Crawford and Jeff Spain (two former Sunday Best competitors). Videos and The Soul Train Awards will also be part of the channel’s mix. 30 years after BET first hit the airwaves, it may be safe to say that 2010 may shape up to be one of its best programming years to date.

For more information, go to BET’s Media Center.

(Target Market News) Next month, Centric, BET’s newest network, will debut “Keeping Up With The Joneses,” a reality show centered on Tracey Ferguson, founder and editor-in-chief of Houston-based “Jones” magazine. The five-year-old publication is considered the “it” guide for the African-American perspective on the city’s high society and fashion.

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