Black In Britain News

ADEBAYO LAUNCHES TV STATION


	Britain's first general interest black internet TV station launches later this month and Dotun Adebayo is in the middle of sorting it out. "There's an unofficial black season, you know," explains the BBC broadcaster and publisher. "It starts with the Afro Hair & Beauty show at Alexandra Palace in May and ends with Black History Month in October - the Notting Hill carnival in somewhere between." Adebayo and his wife, the reggae legend Carroll Thompson, have been hard at work, frantically promoting their new venture www.colourtelly.tv, Britain's first-ever general interest Black internet TV station. He says. "We gave out 2,000 sample DVDs of the channel at the Afro Hair and Beauty show and at carnival, we'll give out 20,000 more. We'll continue doing the same thing until everyone gets to hear about us." By under-serving or neglecting minority viewers altogether, says Adebayo, mainstream broadcasters have left a yawning gap in the market. "The black audience pays its licence fee, but we don't really see ourselves - or stars from our community - represented on screen at all. I promise you, apart from people passing by in the street, you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of Black faces on British TV." And that's where colourtelly.tv comes in, he continues. "There's nothing remotely like it out there. Yes, there are a few other black TV stations based in Britain - but they tend to be Nigerian TV stations or the obligatory black-interest music stations. Colourtelly.tv will be a very different proposition. We'll be making our own drama, our own talkshows, kids' and history programmes, all aimed at a Black British audience. "I've tapped into a whole stream of black actors. Everyone in the black community knows names like Victor Romero Evans and Patrick Robinson, ( Casualty), but when was the last time you saw them on TV? The same goes for scriptwriters and presenters. I'm getting inundated. The channel will also broadcast a daily soap opera (a Black EastEnders), Babyfather, based on a series of books by Patrick Augustus, published by X Press. "The X Press put out more than 200 books by first-time authors, including bestseller Yardie and Cop Killer," he says. "We sold the rights to a couple of them although they have never been produced. Babyfather was made by the BBC, the rest are just sitting there. Adebayo and Thompson are putting their money where their mouths are with this project. Loans have been taken out. Credit cards have been "maxed out" and while budgets are of the shoestring variety, Adebayo stresses that "everyone gets paid ". The channel is subscription-only and he estimates that with 2,000 subscribers, paying £10-a-month each, it can "just about break even". However, a 10,000 subscriber base would allow the station to be on air 24 hours. "Me and my wife are risking everything with this," he admits. "We're risking our home and our future. If the Black community want it, it will be there. If they don't, well ... then we'll go under."

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