AAJA RespondsTo AZN Television Shutting Down

Here's the AAJA's response to Comcast pulling the plug on AZN Television:

The Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) today expressed disappointment at the decision by Comcast to shut down AZN Television in April this year, calling it a big loss of yet another important venue through which the American public can learn more about Asians and Pacific Islanders through community-specific news and entertainment.

While understanding that this was primarily a business decision, AAJA lamented the fact that the demise of AZN is the second big blow to the AAPI community in less than six months. In October last year, KQED in San Francisco discontinued its nationally syndicated public radio program, "Pacific Time," developed to provide news about Asia, Asian American communities and connections across the Pacific Ocean. Like "Pacific Time," AZN offered broad education through broadcast and online media.

In many ways, "AZN is to the Asian American community just like Univision is to the Latino and BET is to the African American communities, respectively," said Rene Astudillo, AAJA executive director. He added that AAJA "has partnered with AZN in many ways to ensure that more Asian Americans are given the opportunity to use their journalism and new media skills to enhance the delivery of news and information to the American public." AAJA's most recent partnership with AZN involved internship opportunities for students to post journalism-style news and editorial commentary on the network's Web site.

Astudillo said that AAJA is happy and ready to offer its resources to Comcast and other broadcast networks to develop major programming specifically addressing issues and stories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. "At the same time, we urge advertisers to step up to support such programming, because studies and surveys have consistently pointed to a significant marketing potential in the Asian American community which is the fastest growing population in the U.S., next to the Latino community," he said.

While I don't think AZN Television ever caught on like BET or Univision - because it never really got the chance - it's good to see the AAJA putting this out.

More on AZN Television closing, Outspoken, and the AZN Website

I put out an e-mail to AZN Television's Media Contact, and here's some more information:

Official Statement

AZN Television’s last day of broadcasting will be April 9, 2008. The decision was made after considerable review of the network’s financial situation. Comcast, the network’s parent company, will continue to broadcast additional Asian programming through the International Networks and other independent providers and remains committed to supporting the Asian American community through programming, civic and cultural events.

I also asked the question of what will be happening with their website as well as Outspoken, their new blog focused on Asian American issues, and their Communications Director had this to share:

The date to terminate the site has not yet been set but the plan is to keep it up as long as the television channel is on the air. And, we do plan to continue the Outspoken blog. We’ve just selected 4 new students to contribute to the blog.

We are scheduled to have new submissions up starting the first week of February.

In addition, Comcast will continue its support of the 2008 Asian Excellence Awards which will be held in April in Los Angeles.

Breaking News: Comcast is pulling the plug on AZN Television

*I'll be posting more on AZN Television and some commentary on the cable channel later, but I wanted to make sure to get this out into blogosphere as I heard the news*

As sad as I am to hear the news from CNN that Comcast is pulling AZN Television "The Network For Asian America" as of April 9th 2008 - in some ways I'm not surprised by Comcast pulling the cable channel either - but I do wonder if it still is premature even with a lower than expected 13.9 million viewers and lower than realized advertising for the channel (and the one bit of good news out of all of this is that at least the Asian Excellence Awards will move to the E! Entertainment Television network where it will get a broader audience).

At the same time I wonder if AZN Television can still be saved somehow by an infusion of cash or a grassroots campaign from the Asian American community to "Save AZN Television" - if Jericho can be saved, can AZN Television? Should anyone even try?