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Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Black News Channel To Borrow To Keep Operating


Black News Channel has won a federal judge’s permission to borrow desperately needed funds from its owner so the troubled media outlet can keep operating while it searches for a buyer.

Bloomberg reports U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Karen Specie said in a hearing Tuesday she’d let the television network borrow about $1.6 million from an entity affiliated with Shahid Khan, the billionaire who has been financing BNC since 2018. The cash will let BNC keep paying vendors and its few remaining employees while it tries to quickly line up a buyer for the operations.

BNC, a television outlet catering to people of color, was on the precipice of shutting down entirely and selling itself in pieces late last month after running desperately low on funds. The outfit shrank its operations and fired almost all of its employees, many of whom still haven’t been paid for work done just before the bankruptcy, court papers show.

Instead of liquidating, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and has since worked to keep operating on a much smaller scale. Just 17 employees remained when it filed for bankruptcy, a fraction of the more than 300 people working for the Tallahassee-based broadcaster six months ago, but BNC in the last week moved to rehire seven employees that’ll help the channel stay on the air, according to court papers.

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