Soul of the South Network Plans Labor Day Launch

From RICHARD PRINCE'S JOURNAL-ISM - A new African American-oriented television network has posted a video preview of its plans for an unprecedented five hours of daily news programming, which the network's primary creator, Edwin Avent, said he hopes to have on the air on Labor Day weekend.

Avent, former publisher of Heart & Soul magazine, told Journal-isms on Friday that as of this week, Soul of the South will be in 25 markets and that he hopes to reach 55 markets by year's end. The largest markets include Chicago, Philadelphia and Atlanta. The network will be broadcast-based, but will also be picked up by some cable networks.

The only journalist named in the video is Roy Hobbs, a veteran journalist and a former weekend television anchor in Birmingham, Ala., but the news director is said to be Tom Jacobs, veteran broadcaster based in Cleveland. Matthew L. Mixon, a Los Angeles-based producer who has a background in sales, programming and production, is said to have a programming role.

The video promises a daily hourlong evening newscast, a two-hour morning news show, "Morning Call," and "Capital Eye," a nightly half-hour program "from each of our Southern capitals," based at WHUT-TV at Howard University.

Hobbs' involvement with the network represents a personal milestone. He was busted on drug charges in April 2010, his name splashed across local news media. "I was trying to commit suicide," ...Read the entire post at Richard Prince's Journal-isms