New African-American Net Scores First Carriage Deal

ATLANTA: Bounce TV, a new digital terrestrial network targeting African Americans, has secured distribution with Raycom Media to go out to 26 markets across the U.S. this fall.

This marks the first distribution deal for the new network, which targets African Americans ages 25 to 54 with a range of movies, live sporting events, documentaries, specials, faith-based programs, off-network series, original programming and more. The multi-year deal with Raycom sees the channel available to stations in more than 10 percent of all U.S. TV households and nearly 19 percent of African-American TV homes. Bounce TV expects to be in at least 50 percent of U.S. TV homes at launch, with further distribution deals to be announced shortly.

"Bounce TV is the right network at the right time for our stations," commented Paul McTear, Raycom’s president and CEO. "Bounce TV will allow us to better serve our communities, giving underserved African-American consumers a new local television brand designed specifically for them while also providing our local stations an ideal companion network for their digital spectrum. We believe Bounce TV will be a meaningful network in our local communities and we look forward to a great relationship for many years to come."

"Landing our first station group is significant, but to explode out of the gate with Raycom, a leader in providing local television across the country, is tremendous and instantly validates the mission of Bounce TV," added Jeffrey Wolf, Bounce TV’s distribution chief. "The Raycom stations will be able to localize our network and have it serve as a perfect complement to their primary channel. We could not be more thrilled to welcome Raycom as our foundation affiliate group."