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Its taken us a lot to finally speak out on the reality of our situation, but the truth is that @sky @SkyMediaUK @BARBtelevision have contradicted every word of this performative tweet and our channel has suffered the very ‘racial injustice’ they suddenly seek to ‘highlight’ (1) https://twitter.com/skyuk/status/1270031594246602752
ABN TV Quickly became a household name in the African and Caribbean Community in the UK. We won multiple awards and our viewership stats were growing by the week. The Channel continued to rise to success (2)
However, @BARBtelevision - the viewership reporting agency (owned collectively by Sky, ITV, BBC, Channel4, Channel5, UKTV, IPA) completely devastated our channel by reducing the allocated number of monitors in black and ethnic minority households. (3)
As a result, In a matter of months, our viewership dropped from 100,000 to roughly 12,000 daily, despite our social media presence and audiences actually growing. BARB completely undercut our viewership stats which undermined our revenue stream. This is not by chance. (4)
After countless meetings and consultations with SKY & BARB, assistance was sought with the DCMS, No.10 Downing St and our Local MP @helenhayes_ only for the channel to be abruptly taken off air during the process in November 2019 (5)
As a black (African) owned channel, we know the impact of racial injustice and stunted growth all too well. We ask that everyone who reads this can retweet and share - and urge @sky @BARBtelevision to do the right thing and actually increase this ‘representation’ they tweet. (6)
This starts with restoring the rightful number of monitors to Black and Ethnic Minority households to reflect REAL demographics and publishing REAL numbers to help us get our channel back! (7)
Unfortunately, ABN TV was not the first black channel this happened to, but hopefully and with your help - it can be the last. @sky @SkyMediaUK @BARBtelevision We hope that this tweet will be the beginning of some real accountability on your part. (8)
