*The business of mass media and journalism has always been tumultuous. With each transitional period in history, black-centric and Black-owned media companies, intellectual property and cultural artifacts have taken the brunt of the upheavals. Paramount Global shuttered MTVNews.com as part of a cost-cutting measure on June 24. Deadline reported that Paramount Global deleted the video archives of Comedy Central just days later.
At its height, Vice Media dealt with the coverage of cultural artifacts produced, celebrated, and purchased by an audience of people inspired by African Americans.
It was once worth $5.7 billion but was purchased for $350 million by three investment companies last year.
According to an article published in Reuters, Vice could not live up to the lofty expectations of being valued at billions while simultaneously fighting head-to-head against Facebook and Google for advertising dollars.
Since the early 2000s, media companies of all sizes and audiences have had to learn to switch business models on the fly. But that has become increasingly difficult over time. Algorithms are manipulated and revenue dollars fluctuate and yesterday’s price is not today’s price. Sometimes, it is lower.
A Troubling Trend
A New York Times article quoted a Northwestern University journalism school report regarding the closures of American newspapers. It is at a rate of two per week before the pandemic.
The report further states that the country is on pace to lose a third of its newspapers by 2025.
The deletion of black and black-adjacent intellectual properties and media is part of the broader phenomenon of mass media cost-cutting measures that have resulted in the loss of thousands of media jobs in recent years.
From a Black facing perspective, the deletion of vast Hip-Hop archives at MTVNews.com and Black comedic videos that surely featured the black comedic genius of Dave Chapelle, Key & Peele, and many others, is part of a broader trend.
One that has seen the death of once urban media mainstay Okayplayer.
Black Ownership of Black IP/Intellectual Property
With comparatively few Black-owned media outlets, any cut causes a deeper scar. There is so little black control over black intellectual property and that is what makes black culture in the digital age vulnerable to erasure.
Coupled with the growing trend of schoolbook banning and history editing that was ushered in by the state of Florida, a larger lion looms yonder. One that would easily erase, supplant, and usurp Black intellectual properties, Black cultural artifacts, as well as Black ownership of such, at the whim of a conservative court judge or some economic upheaval.
The ephemeral nature of Black-centric popular culture is also what makes it so easy to move on from, and the revolutionary aspects of Black-centric culture, often bring it into opposition with some mainstream American values. Values that would ban Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” and Ralph Ellison’s “The Invisible Man.” Both of these effects place it at risk.
In 2023, Paramount announced they were taking BET Media Group after previously announcing it was for sale. Filmmaker Tyler Perry was among the leading candidates to buy. Media mogul Byron Allen would later swoop in with a $3.5 billion offer that was also rejected.
A few weeks ago Paramount announced BET Media Group was back on the market. BET CEO Scott Mills, and Chinh Chu, head of private equity firm CC Capital, are among a group of investors in talks with Paramount to purchase the brand.
Conclusion
We’re not saying it was because they were black, but Paramount’s rejections of lucrative offers from black investors awash in cash are noticeable.
After rejecting Byron Allen’s bid of $3.5 billion last year, the current deal that Paramount is vetting is for about $1.6 billion. Perry described his bidding experience with Paramount as “disappointing.”
Any new owners could decide to do at the network what Paramount did to MTVNews, CMT, and Comedy Central. The reality is decades of footage highlighting black culture would be removed from public view forever.
This underlies the importance of black ownership of black intellectual properties and black media.
The gatekeepers of black media are often the gatekeepers of black cultural artifacts.
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