EBONY Media Group and Lionsgate joined forces to launch a new free channel directed towards Black viewers that is rolling out through the end of the month, starting on Samsung TV Plus.
EBONY TV by Lionsgate is EBONY’s first venture into ad-supported streaming. The channel hosts 18,000 titles from Lionsgate’s catalog featuring African-American programming, such as The Great Debaters, a Golden Globe-nominated drama starring Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker.
“We are excited to collaborate with EBONY to launch our first FAST channel providing premium Lionsgate content tailored to Black audiences,” said Susan Hummel, executive vice president and Lionsgate’s Canadian head of domestic channels. “EBONY is the perfect partner to help bring our expansive library to a demographic that has been previously underserved in the FAST space.”
Audiences can also catch Snitch with Dwayne Johnson, Dear White People starring Tessa Thompson, If Beale Street Could Talk with KiKi Layne, Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself starring Taraji P. Henson, and Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown with Pam Grier. EBONY TV hosts a number of shows, including Are We There Yet? And Kevin Hart: What The Fit.
“EBONY has long been an outlet our culture could count on for news and entertainment,” said Eden Bridgeman Sklenar, CEO of EBONY. “Our new partnership with Lionsgate and the launch of EBONY TV is an extension of our brand that will provide our audience with Black-focused programming that furthers our mission to Move Black Forward.”For now, only Samsung TV Plus members can check out the thousands of film and series titles available to stream for free on EBONY TV. The channel will launch on Roku, Tubi, and Amazon Freevee before October is over, according to EBONY Magazine. It joins Lionsgates’ growing library of free ad-supported channels, such as MovieSphere, HerSphere, and OuterSphere, or single IP channels like Nashville and Ghost Hunters.