Ebony Media, Lionsgate team up to launch FAST channel

Ebony name returns to TV as the former Chicago-based property showcases Black films and television

For the first time in a long time, the Ebony magazine name is back on TV. 

The brand name synonymous with Black life in America is teaming up with Lionsgate to launch a 24/7 FAST (free advertiser-supported television) channel. The new Ebony channel features content targeted to Black audiences from Lionsgate’s 18,000-title library, including films and TV shows. The channel is being made available first to Samsung Plus on channel 1054 beginning today, then expand to Tubi, Amazon’s FreeVee and The Roku Channel in the coming weeks. 

“Ebony has long been an outlet our culture could count on for news and entertainment,” said Ebony CEO Eden Bridgeman Sklenar, who’s related to Junior Bridgeman – an East Chicago, Ind. native and a former NBA player with the Milwaukee Bucks who now owns the brand, purchased out of bankruptcy in 2020. “Our new partnership with Lionsgate and the launch of Ebony TV is an extension of our brand that will provide our audience with Black-focused programming that furthers our mission to Move Black Forward.”

The films showcased on the channel include The Great Debaters, Snitch, Dear White People, Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself, And Jackie Brown. 

The channel also plans to showcase some TV content, including the former TBS sitcom Are We There Yet? and Kevin Hart: What The Fit. Lionsgate owns syndicator Debmar-Mercury, who distributes Family Feud and Sherri to local stations. 

“With the exceptional growth of MovieSphere [another FAST channel] by Lionsgate over the past year, we are excited to collaborate with Ebony to launch our first FAST channel providing premium Lionsgate content tailored to Black audiences,” said Lionsgate Head of Domestic Channels and EVP & Managing Director, Canada Susan Hummel. “Ebony is the perfect partner to help bring our expansive library to a demographic that has been previously underserved in the FAST space.” 

Ebony – and sister publication Jet were published by Chicago-based Johnson Publishing and was based at its longtime headquarters at 820 S. Michigan in the South Loop (I have more on Johnson Publishing’s history in a piece I wrote in June 2016.) Eleven years after founder John H. Johnson died, the two magazines were sold to a private equity firm and went through bankruptcy again in 2020 before Bridgeman purchased it and reinvented as a digital magazine and a standalone website. The original Johnson Publishing went out of business in 2019. 

The new FAST actually marks a return of the Ebony name to television – from 1985 to 1993, Johnson Publishing syndicated a weekly magazine show called Ebony/Jet Showcase, spotlighting Black celebrities in the world of film, TV, literary works, and music. Hosts over the years included Greg Gumbel, Deborah Crable, and Daryl Dennard.