Balogun Kennedy who has been
ceremonially enstooled as an Ashanti Chief (Nana Amo Kantinkrau) in Ghana
is the kind of man, if he has something on his mind he is going to have his
say. Often the Wilmington Delaware resident would send letters to The News
Journal the local paper address an issue he felt passionate about, but they
would edit them down to a fraction of their original content, if they published
them at all. He has written a book and launched his own television production
company. In 1991 Kennedy got tired of having his Letters to the Editor and
Op-Ed pieces emended, so he decided he would take the initiative and have
his say on television. So he purchased time on a local cable company public
access channel and started producing his own television programs. Out of this
original initiative Black Information Television was born. Kennedy has been
on the air in Wilmington ever since, broadcasting over channel 28 and now
66. Over the years he has produced programs for the Wilmington market and
he is now producing a show on Comcast Cable’s Philadelphia Channel 66
On The Move Five Minutes To Midnight hosted by Pam Africa. “Actually
my program is being shown in more places than Wilmington and Philadelphia
because there are people in other cities who buy tapes of the program. I’m
in the process now of talking to some people in Baltimore about securing air
time in Baltimore and sending tapes down there to air. The bottom line is
that it takes capital to expand. It just a matter of having the capital to
buy air time on other access systems across the nation.” As an independent
producer, working with the Comcast staff Kennedy has total control over every
aspect of the program and its production quality. “The way lease access
works in Wilmington, Wilmington is different than Philadelphia, for my Philly
show I just send them a tape; we do live production in Wilmington and there
is a staff that Comcast has, you as the director and producer dictate how
many cameras you want to use, what the camera angels are; as long as you pay
for your time. I make up my graphics and they type them up. Basically it’s
just me but I have a network of people who assist me. As far as a staff I’m
not at the point where I can hire people. My ultimate goal is to have my own
studio where I can produce my own three quarter inch tapes, which is the industry
standard”.
Kennedy’s unabashedly pro-black orientation and programming content
have not caused him much trouble censorship wise as long as he keeps paying
the lease costs to the Cable company. “Recently a guest on one of the
guests on Pam’s program, out of frustration uttered one of the words
you are no tallowed to use and I got a lot of flak behind that. They changed
some of the rules but as long as I pay for the air time they can’t take
the air time from me. But if I ever miss one payment, make no mistake about
it they’ll take that opportunity to get me off the air because they
have been waiting on me to miss a payment in Wilmington for the last ten years.
For some reason people are afraid of independent thought.” Shared Kennedy.
“We’ve come a long ways but we’ve still got a long ways
to go. what I say with Black Information Television is, we are a bridge across
the middle passage. What we ultimately want to do is show news about the Motherland.
I have people in Africa who can send me stores, not just about hungry children
or wars and stuff like that but about African life, the beautiful life in
Africa. I would like Black Information Television to be a window to Africa.
People have the wrong impression of Africa. I’m an Ashanti Chief and
I would encourage every black person to go to Africa at least once in their
life before they die to see it for themselves.”
Kennedy feels it is important black people own and create our own media. “I
think it’s important we have our own nation. Having our own media and
education is important because it’s the building blocks to our own nation.
I think the ultimate solution to our problem is to have our own nation. African-Americans
celebrate independence every fourth of July but don’t have a clue what
independence is because we have been under white rule for so long. There is
no justice under white rule that’s why I always promote we should have
our own, regardless of what it is.” While he has registered some successes
with his programs he has also had some setbacks. Recently he partnered with
Henry DeBernardo to produce a program but it lacked commercial sponsorship
and support. “We did a program last fall with Brother Henry DeBernardo
promoting the Black Star Newspaper that also aired in Philadelphia. It came
on at 9 PM but we didn’t get the sponsorship support from the businesses
that we had wanted. I would like to come back on on Friday nights with a program
that deals with the community.” Kennedy’s daughter designed a
Website for him www.blackinfotv.com and he is experimenting with putting snippets
of various program on the site so people can see them.
Long term Kennedy wants to expand the production capabilities of B.I.T. to
cover all of black life, not just the negative. “What I would like to
do is especially in Wilmington is to have on the street reporters and have
people report what is going on in the community other than drug dealing and
people getting shot. There are a lot of positive things in the community,
human interest stories; I would like to get into that. Until I can get more
time in Philadelphia my Tuesday program will be limited to Wilmington.”
Kennedy’s Wilmington program airs Tuesdays at 4:30 his Philadelphia
program airs from 12 Midnight to1 AM in Thursday morning on Comcast channel
66. “If people if they turn on their television at five minutes to midnight
on Wednesday night on channel 66 and wait five minutes they will see the program.”