Happy Tuesday POU! This week’s open threads will highlight black-oriented/owned channels. Today’s channel is Soul of the South.
Soul of the South Television (sometimes referred to as SSN TV) is an African-American-focused regional broadcast network owned by SSN Media Group, LP. It primarily broadcasts in the Southern USA and secondarily in other high African-American populated cities in the north.
SSN TV uses the C.A.S.H. (Central Automated Satellite Hub) system, and a computer server “cloud-based system” originally constructed by the defunct Equity Broadcasting to send its feed to its affiliated stations. It sought affiliations from full-power television stations, Class A TV, low power TV stations, digital sub-channels, and cable outlets.
Soul of the South announced plans to rename the network to Slang TV by the end of 2019,[2] but as of January 2020, it has not been changed.
SSN TV was founded in 2011 by Edwin Avent, Carl McCaskill, and Larry Morton. It purchased assets from the bankrupted Equity Media Holdings, including the studio and production facilities of KKYK-TV and the C.A.S.H. system. It was planning to broadcast five hours of news per day with help from Independent News Network with four regional bureaus. It was also seeking to purchase TV stations. Expected original programming was a hip hop music show; family reunion-featured programming; Drum Majors, concerning music at mostly black colleges; Radioface, an unscripted comedy; and Southern Soul Stories, a documentary series about southern African-American icons and southern events.
By April 2012, SSN TV was working to get additional affiliates to reach 50 markets for a two-wave launch.
Originally planned to launch in the first quarter of 2012 and moved to fall 2012, SSN TV instead launched on May 27, 2013, with an announced 30 market launch. However, according to RabbitEars.info, it only has 11 broadcast affiliates covering 14% of the nation.
SSN TV agreed to carry some games from the first season of the Fall Experimental Football League in October and November 2014.
In April 2015, SSN TV began dropping affiliates because of financial distress and began winding down operations. The network’s social media channels had largely gone defunct in late 2015. By this time, it aired infomercials, reruns of D.C. Breakdown, and Independent Network News newscasts during the day.
In 2018, a group of investors led by Doug McHenry purchased SSN TV. In that same year, the network gained cable coverage on Comcast and Frontier’s cable lineups. In April 2019, McHenry announced SSN TV would rebrand as Slang TV by the end of the year, with a shift to a schedule mainly featuring current-day African-American films. At the same time, HC2 Station Group, Inc. inked an affiliation deal with the refreshed network to bring the network to 29 new markets, covering 44% of the network’s demographic.