The mission behind a company like this is admirable, but I can't help but feel like it is the wrong approach to diversity. It reminds me of BET... why would we want to segregate content to one specific channel or network? It feels backwards to me. True diversity would be having this content everywhere. A service like this is almost like a specialty kitchen item. My fiancée is a stickler for this stuff and it is somet…
Not exactly. Cartoon Network was created as a place to show old Hannah Barbera cartoons before branching into their own content. In that same sense, BET was originally conceived as a hub for black sitcoms and shows that had come and gone over the years before branching into their own content. That's what cable was in the 80s and 90s: niche programming. Segregating content made sense when a-la cart programming was infeasible. Like what were they going to do? Cable networks were already sharing signals (BET began as 2hrs of block programming on Nickelodeon for instance) before digital receivers gave them hundreds of channels to exist on.
I agree that we're still a long way from a-la cart programming. Hell paying for Playstation Vue's Spanish package doesn't get you Univision and in some US markets Telemundo isn't included in the Elite package. However I think its a little narrow minded to throw shade on any niche channel without considering the environment that channel was founded in.
Also as an aside: BET was not created with diversity in mind. It was created to target programming at African Americans and it has been a resounding success because its first mission is to show programming like hip-hop/r&b videos and reruns of The Game (though that does not come without criticism). The channel execs probably couldn't care less about catering to other people of color.