Black Family Channel (founded in 1999 as MBC Network) was a network for African American families and the only black-owned and operated cable television network (BET, as seen below, is owned by Viacom, while another African-American oriented channel, TV One, is co-owned by Comcast). The network's schedule included a variety of programs including religious programs, sports, music, talk shows, and children's programs.
The network was started by attorney Willie E. Gary, baseball legend Cecil Fielder, four-time heavyweight boxing champ Evander Holyfield, Marlon Jackson of The Jackson 5, and broadcast television veteran Alvin James.
The channel started off as MBC which stood for Major Broadcasting Cable Network. The name was rebranded Black Family Channel on October 1, 2004 in hopes that it would better identify the channel's content.
BFC would effectively be run by actor/director Robert Townsend, who developed original programming for the network, including its most notable effort—the children's educational game show, The Thousand Dollar Bee, in which children would participate in tournament-style rounds of spelling challenges toward which the champion would receive a $1000 bond for his or her college education.
Unlike its primary rival, the Viacom-owned Black Entertainment Television, Black Family Channel avoided rap and hip hop-based programming (they showed gospel music instead). The network was available in up to 16 million homes in the US.
On April 24, 2007, BFC announced that they would cease as a cable channel, effective April 30, 2007, as part of a deal in which BFC's programming and subscriber base would be sold to the Gospel Music Channel. On May 1, 2007, they did.
The station was an associate member of the Caribbean Cable Cooperative.
Read more about Black Family Channel: Over-the-air Coverage
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