Detroit’s WADL-TV shifts programming emphasis to African-American viewers

By Bill Shea
Crain’s Detroit Business
(November 12, 2007) The local television industry is taking a wait-and-see approach to the decision by WADL-TV Channel 38 to shift its focus from primarily religious, infomercial and home-shopping programs to programming aimed at metro Detroit's African-American audience.

The Clinton Township-based station, which is unaffiliated with a national network and has been on the air since 1986, has acquired several syndicated shows. They range from 1970s comedies such as "Sanford and Son" and "The Jeffersons" to contemporary shows such as MTV's "Pimp My Ride" and "Chappelle's Show."

Lewis Gibbs, WADL's president and general manager, declined to say how much the station is spending on new content, but local television insiders estimate it's between $100,000 and $250,000.

WADL has likely purchased some of the shows outright in syndication deals, while others are probably brokered. That means the syndicator offers the show in return for most or all advertising time, insiders said.

WADL is hiring about a dozen new staffers, including sales representatives, Gibbs said. The station also retained New York City-based Blair Television Inc. to handle national advertising sales. Oak Park-based Boswell Creative was hired to rebrand the channel as "Detroit's Urban Television Station" in print and broadcast advertisements and a Web site, www.wadldetroit.com.

The station is taking advantage of what it perceives as a gap in urban-aimed programming in Detroit that was created when CBS Corp.'s UPN and Warner Bros. Entertainment's WB networks changed to more mainstream content, Gibbs said.

Earlier this year, UPN and WB merged, locally becoming the CW affiliate WKBD-TV Channel 50. WMYD-TV Channel 20, which had been the local WB affiliate, became an affiliate of News Corp.-owned MyNetworkTV.

"They left a tremendous void in the market for urban programming," Gibbs said. "Now was the time because of the huge hole in the market. It was a great opportunity for us to do that with programming."

Sarah Norat-Phillips is vice president and general manager of WMYD and is familiar with the shift in emphasis.

"Both the WB and UPN started their networks with a heavier leaning to African-American programming," she said. "As those networks evolved, they moved away from that core programming strategy."

Norat-Phillips thinks WADL's strategy can work, but only if it finds the mix of programming that viewers want.

While WMYD may carry less niche programming, it and other Detroit stations still aim to attract African-American viewers and advertisers seeking to tap that audience.

"Everyone in the market understands the power of the African-American viewer and consumer," Norat-Phillips said. "None of us had abandoned the segment."

Detroit's 391,600 African-American television-viewing households make it the seventh-largest market nationally in that demographic, according to the New York-based audience-tracking service Nielsen Media Research.

Local media buyers are aware of the changes at WADL, and there is some interest in connecting advertisers to the channel

"We do have some business that targets African-American adults, especially state government," said Micci Lasser, senior media buyer at Brogan & Partners Convergence Marketing in Birmingham. "It's going to be a kind of wait-and-see type of thing. It's definitely something we'd look at. We have bought urban programming in the past."

There is no magic formula when it comes to appealing to a specific audience, but there are some general guidelines, said Jessica Pelligrino, general manager of Spanish-language station Univision WUDT-TV Channel 23 in Troy.

"You have to have advertising and programming that gears toward the specific community," she said. "There isn't a single show out there everyone watches. We all have different tastes and want different kinds of information."

If WADL airs "the right shows at the right times and (promotes them), they could have a very successful formula," Pelligrino said.

Chris McCourtney, general manager of the radio group Salem Detroit and former ad salesman for ABC affiliate WXYZ-Channel 7, said there are more questions than answers over the programming shift at WADL.

"Clearly, there's an urban audience to be addressed in Southeast Michigan, and it is (a) substantial audience, but can we make it make sense as a business?" he said. "Can they get a meaningful enough audience to sell advertising and support it?"

WADL President Gibbs also heads The Word Network, a widely distributed cable and satellite channel of paid religious programming. He said that channel's content, which has long been seen on WADL, eventually will be replaced with secular programming, although some religious content will remain.

Channel 38 and The Word Network were founded by Franklin Adell, who died in 2006. His son Kevin now operates parent company Adell Broadcasting Corp.

WADL's broadcasting history includes CBS programming, pro wrestling, classic movies, music videos and Fox children's shows. Other new syndicated content includes more broadly aimed shows such as "The Nanny" and "Mad About You."

The content mix will make or break WADL's effort, McCourtney said.

"If it's bad TV, it's bad TV. It doesn't matter who the audience is."


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