R.I.P. AZN TV

I went to the AZN Channel website and what did I find?

http://azntv.com/shutdownVideo.aspx

Why didn’t I know?! Well, the fact that I didn’t know was a lot of the reason why it’s off the air now. What I mean is viewership. I did enjoy the channel, but I just don’t watch a lot of TV in general. I was actually surprised and sad to hear this news and now I’m trying to figure out what it means. It seemed like Asian Pacific American (APA) representation was finally forming shape in the media. Particularly because International Channel use to air worldwide programming, but narrowed it down to Asian content with the AZN Channel. There is a good analysis by Jeff Yang of SFGate regarding this whole issue under the title "Running out of the string."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2008/01/29/apop.DTL

In short, he says Comcast only committed to amount of time they needed to collect as much as they wanted from the channel and then dropped it. While that may be the underling goal of Comcast from the beginning, it’s still undeniable that without the ad sponsorship and viewers needed to support the shows it only added to the channel’s demise.

Stephan Gong, executive director of the Center for Asian American Media, says the channel was ahead of its time and I agree. Asian Pacific Americans are making a lot of progress in the media which is why AZN Channel and the short lived MTV World existed. Those channel’s failures doesn’t necessarily equal doom for APA entertainment rather it allows time to refine the emerging art, so all viewers can appropriately appreciate the diverse range of perspective that we can all relate too. AZN Channel was a good start for APA entertainment, but look forward to the next generation that will take us even further into the APA experience.

-JSN

P.S.

It's time to mobilize!