TheGrio
TheGrio, styled as theGrio, is an American television network and website with news, opinion, entertainment and video content geared toward African-Americans.[1]
Type
United States
United States
December 22, 2016
Black News Channel (after network purchase and merger into TheGrio TV)
Light TV (2016-2021)
History[edit]
TheGrio is to "focus on news and events that have a unique interest and pronounced impact within the national African Americans audience,"[2] offering what co-founder and Executive Editor David Wilson feels "are underrepresented in existing national news outlets".
The website's name is derived from the word griot, the term for a West African oral historian and storyteller.[3]
The website originally launched in June 2009 as a division of NBC News,[4][5] it became a division of MSNBC in 2013. It was founded by the team who created the documentary film Meeting David Wilson. In 2014, it was sold to its founders.[6] In June 2016, Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios acquired the site.[7]
The TV channel was founded as Light TV in 2016 by reality television producer Mark Burnett and his wife, actress Roma Downey, as an inspirational network as part of his chairmanship of MGM Television, which operated the network. It was sold to Entertainment Studios in late 2020, and relaunched as TheGrio TV in January 2021, with a Black-specific programming focus.
After Entertainment Studios purchased the assets of the bankrupt Black News Channel in late July 2022, that network was merged into TheGrio TV on August 1, including the former's existing cable, satellite and advertiser supported on-demand streaming carriage, and plans to add more news and commentary to TheGrio TV's schedule.[8]
Television network[edit]
TheGrio TV (2021–present)[edit]
Light TV and This TV were both sold by MGM TV in October 2020 to the Allen Media Group division of Entertainment Studios.[9] On December 3, 2020, it was announced that the network would be relaunched as TheGrio.TV on January 15, 2021, carrying lifestyle and entertainment programming of interest to the Black American community as an extension of the website.[10]
That same day, Light TV's satellite transponder space was taken over by Entertainment Studios, which stopped carrying programming in the interim and instead transmitted a test pattern promoting the launch of TheGrio (later a looping launch promo), while MGM continued to carry a stream of Light TV through the network's website. Fox Television Stations confirmed its stations would be a part of TheGrio's charter launch group, and much of its affiliate body transferred over through the month-long dark period, though some stations departed for other networks.[11] The network officially relaunched as TheGrio on January 15, 2021, that year's Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and that same day MGM handed over the domain of Light TV to Entertainment Studios, ending the stream of Light TV.