For over a decade, seasoned journalist Roland Martin has voraciously served daily news to the Black community on #RolandMartinUnfiltered, and he’s ready to take things to new heights with his next venture.
Since its inception, the daily news show has “generated nearly 509 million views and more than 1.5 billion minutes watched,” a press release states. Now, Martin realizes that there is a need to provide the Black community with content driven by their concerns. With that said, the award-winning journalist has recently announced the debut of the Black Star Network on the third anniversary of #RolandMartinUnfiltered.
“We’ve proven over the last three years that Black women, men and children desire culturally relevant content from a Black-owned media company. We have traveled all over the country covering a variety of big news stories, and Black Star Network will allow us to further expand our footprint,” Martin said in a press release.
The network features an array of Black news and content centered on politics, culture, news, and technology. Users can look forward to engaging insights from Black creators and thought leaders. Subscriptions for the network is free on all devices and platforms. The platform can be streamed through Xbox, Amazon FireTV, AppleTV, Roku, and Samsung. For Apple and Android users, Black Star Network can be accessed on a phone app. In addition, the network can be accessed live on BlackStarNetwork.com.
The over-the-top (OTT) platform plans to rely on advertisements for monetization.
“A lot of our people simply cannot afford to pay for a streaming service. We purposely chose to keep this free. We purposely chose for people to be able to access our content — that’s what we’ve done with this show as well,” Martin said.
The network plans to allocate five hours of original content for its users but will grow to eight by December. Users will be surprised with feature shows, which will be revealed in the coming weeks, according to a press release.
“African Americans are voracious news and information consumers, and they are demanding more content from their perspective that address issues that they care about,” Martin shared.
