Urban Culture Media Group announced the launch of Urban Now TV (UNTV), a video-on-demand platform that streams curated content highlighting Black culture and the Black experience in America. The new streaming service provides an extensive collection of genre-specific videos covering social justice issues, documentaries, news, entertainment, and more. By focusing on ethnocultural content, UNTV aims to cultivate an unexplored niche as it enters the highly competitive streaming video on demand industry.
According to UNTV’s Founder and CEO Jemell Cotton, “The Mission was to create a single digital destination for Black culture by aggregating and organizing urban video content from around the internet and through technology, distribute it in a way that’s easily viewable to anyone interested in American Black culture.”
“Netflix and Hulu have scripted TV shows and movies, Disney has content for children, but no one has focused on unscripted urban content, until now. That’s our niche, and that’s where we’re focusing,” says Cotton. As Ebony Magazine, BET, and Radio One harnessed the power of print, TV, and radio, Urban Now TV’s vision is to become the premier urban streaming platform and a leading source of Black media.
UNTV features a comprehensive collection of videos including coverage of the current protest and civil unrest over the death of George Floyd. The service also aims to strike a more balanced tone by streaming web series, sports content, and community niche programming. Additionally, the app highlights vlogs from celebrities including Will Smith, Ayeesha Curry, Naomi Campbell, and others.
Content creators and influencers looking for distribution and coverage can pitch their video content by uploading their content directly on the platform or through Facebook and Instagram by using the hashtag #urbannowtv.
Urban Now TV’s mobile app is available for download in the Google Play and Apple App Store. Content can also be streamed on the website, UrbanNow.TV. The streaming service plans to launch smart TV apps for Roku, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire in the fall. The service is currently free. However, looking towards the future, UNTV plans to produce exclusive content and grant access for a small annual or monthly subscription fee.
Urban Now TV is a subsidiary of Urban Culture Media Group LLC. For more information and to learn about Urban Now TV, visit www.UrbanNow.TV
