October 13, 2025 • 8 mins
BTGM Briefs: Roland Martin is host and managing editor of Roland Martin Unfiltered and founder of the Black Star Network.
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You've mentioned a couple risks you took there in that story,
and it sounds to me, and I want you to
correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds to me
like you were more you were more focused. I needed
to get this in front of as many people as possible,
and the ownership might have been secondary, but was the
ownership forefront.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
No, it was the same. They want to stay on
the same level. So I understood. Again, I understood, the
audience was there, the money was there, and this is
I mean, this is This was the literal conversation I
had with Mark Watts, and again it was This was
June twenty eighteen. We had met in March twenty eighteen.
(00:36):
We had come off doing the MK the fiftieth anniversary
of his assassination, and what was interesting about that I'll
never forget. So the show gets canceled in December December,
I think it was December nineth, twenty seventeen, and so
the fiftieth was April fourth, and we had already shot
some stuff and I was like, Hey, I'm sending them emails, Hey,
(01:01):
are we gonna do that, We're gonna do this, We're
gonna We're gonna do this and we're gonna do this,
and I wasn't getting any feedback. Yeah, so I just
had it on my own to spend thirty grand of
my own money, and I flew to Stanford to interview
with Clarence Jones, doctor King's attorney. I went to had
a speech in Buffalo, and then I then went to Ithaca,
New York and sat out with Dorothy Cotton. I went
(01:21):
to Memphis to meet with Sam Bill Lucy, and I
scheduled all these different interviews and funded them, funded them
myself because I understood the importance of the stories. But
here was the other thing I now had that it's
library content. And so what then happens is when I'm
meeting with them, they're not committing to covering stuff. So
(01:46):
I was like, all right, and this is what I
told Mark Marcus, my fraternity brother. We go back to
when I was in high school senior. I said to Marc.
I said, Mark, I'm forty nine years old, I said,
and I am at.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
The peak of this is how I looked at it,
the peak.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Of knowledge, relationships, experience, and energy. And I said, if
I don't do this right now, I don't know if
I said what about don't do it now, I likely
never will and I don't know if anybody black who
(02:26):
is who is willing to do this.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
So I have to do this.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
So I understood there was a business there. I understood
there was an audience there. But the old added, if
you build it, they will come. That it had to happen.
Somebody had to make the decision, so I didn't. It
wasn't about, hey, let's try to go people like man,
I wish you go back to seeing an MSNBC no interest,
because here was a lesson I learned even there.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Now I was at the CNN.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
They couldn't get anybody to interview Winnie Mandela. She was
coming to town at Birmingham, Alabama.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So they came to me.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I was like, yeah, sure, so I go to Birmingham
interview winning Mandela had about twenty twenty five minutes. So
a week later I get a phone call and they go, hey,
this is people in Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
We're look at the interview.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Why didn't you ask her about the trial and this
and this? And I said, why the hell, y'all an interview?
I asked her what I wanted to ask her. I said,
why the hell y'all donna ask your They then said,
we're not going to run the interview.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I said, okay.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I went to John Klein, it was a president seeing
in US, and went to his office, said, Hey, your
folks in Atlanta ain't gonna run the Winni Mandela interview,
So can you just give it to me, give me Privige,
give it to me, and I'm going to run it
on my TV one show.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
John's like, yeah, cool.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I went to When I went to DC, we went
to the CNN bureau, they dubbed the interview over because
it was on this different tape.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Hand to us.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
We ran it on the show and here's the deal.
March twenty eighteen, I'm in Memphis, one month before the assassin,
the Commemorational Assassination. Winnie Mandela dies and I'm there and
I hit my guy. I said, we're gonna restream it.
I interviewed Reverend Jesse Jackson Senior. I interviewed Randall Randall
Robinson about Winnie Mandela, and we restreamed that. The only
(04:19):
reason you can see my interview with Winnie Mandela was
because I had a black on media platform where I
could air it and if I didn't have that to
this seeing in. That thing will be sitting on a
tape on the shelf at Seeing Inn.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
And no one has ever seen it.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
And that's the difference when you first of all own
a platform to be able to distribute a message.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Man, there's so much there. I want to dig in.
I want to lay a little bit more foundation first.
So all right, you decide I'm going to do this
on my own. For the people out there who are
saying no, no.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
No, no, I no no. I didn't decide something did
on my own.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I went to every major black media company, and none
of it wanted to partner.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
I went to them. I understood the business. This is.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
This is sort of how I saw. First of all,
you gotta take it back even further. I had the
TV one show I had heard. I was talking to
people that that that that the show was in jeopardy
and I said, okay, so I simply proposal. And so
here's what happened. I was see, this is why you
have to be a student of the business. So I'm
(05:37):
sitting here and I'm like, okay, you know, how can
we re engineer this, how can we look at this differently?
And so remember dish Nation. I was sitting there and
I was watching it, and this when Ricky Spider was
a part of it, and so it was airing on
TV one. But then I saw dish Nation was online.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
So we went to our affiliate person. I said, I
got a question for you. It's I'm curious, how is
this nation?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Because I knew that we couldn't stream we had limits
of what we could stream online eight on TV one.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I said, how are we able to do this? And
they said, oh, we have the cable rights. So you got.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Cable rights, got broadcast rights, you've got digital rights.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
And then of course international rights are separate. They said,
but we have the cable rights. That's why it's online.
And I went bingo. So this is what I did.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I put a proposal together and I said, okay, the
problem that we have with News one now is that
it's on TV one.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
We're not marketing it outside the channel.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
We have a loyal audience, but it's too small and
they were doing a million advertising a year. The show
was costing forty five million. So I said okay, and
I knew there was a digital audience. So the proposal
I sent them was why don't y'all let me take
ownership of the show. I'm gonna make it a digital shown.
(07:14):
You can pay me, so it was costing you five
you can pay me a licensing fee of three point
five three or two point five million. I will produce
the show, and we have a partnership where we're able
to sell the digital sell piece. You already have the infrastructure,
(07:35):
and then that can be a rev share. They never
responded to the proposal. The show gets canceled. When I
decided to launch this, I gave them another proposal. Why
don't you I got to Radio one, Why don't you
partner with me with what I'm launching. I said, you
can invest five hundred thousand, and this is what I'm
(07:58):
gonna do. This is what I'm gonna deliver. We could
do a rampsure on the advertising, no interest. I talked
to Black Enterprise.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I talked to Rich Dennis over at Essence.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
I remember Morgan and I had a conversation at Blavity,
I remember, and that was just but it was just.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
And I talked to.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Numerous people because I understood all of these entities already
had the AD infrastructure. They had the AD infrastructure the
back in infrastructure, and.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
That none of them were even doing what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
So my deal was, this is the value add proposition.
You need to be able to sell more units, and
so here's how we can utilize streaming. Nobody wanted to partner,
so I said, okay, I'm gonna do it, and I
went ahead and did it myself. But I wasn't but
I was trying to find a black media partner and
(08:49):
no one wanted to and so I said, okay, I'm
gonna go ahead and do it, and that's what we did.
You've mentioned a couple risks you took there in that story,
and it sounds to me, and I want you to
correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds to me
like you were more you were more focused. I needed
to get this in front of as many people as possible,
and the ownership might have been secondary, but was the
ownership forefront.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
No, it was the same. They want to stay on
the same level. So I understood. Again, I understood, the
audience was there, the money was there, and this is
I mean, this is This was the literal conversation I
had with Mark Watts, and again it was This was
June twenty eighteen. We had met in March twenty eighteen.
(00:36):
We had come off doing the MK the fiftieth anniversary
of his assassination, and what was interesting about that I'll
never forget. So the show gets canceled in December December,
I think it was December nineth, twenty seventeen, and so
the fiftieth was April fourth, and we had already shot
some stuff and I was like, Hey, I'm sending them emails, Hey,
(01:01):
are we gonna do that, We're gonna do this, We're
gonna We're gonna do this and we're gonna do this,
and I wasn't getting any feedback. Yeah, so I just
had it on my own to spend thirty grand of
my own money, and I flew to Stanford to interview
with Clarence Jones, doctor King's attorney. I went to had
a speech in Buffalo, and then I then went to Ithaca,
New York and sat out with Dorothy Cotton. I went
(01:21):
to Memphis to meet with Sam Bill Lucy, and I
scheduled all these different interviews and funded them, funded them
myself because I understood the importance of the stories. But
here was the other thing I now had that it's
library content. And so what then happens is when I'm
meeting with them, they're not committing to covering stuff. So
(01:46):
I was like, all right, and this is what I
told Mark Marcus, my fraternity brother. We go back to
when I was in high school senior. I said to Marc.
I said, Mark, I'm forty nine years old, I said,
and I am at.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
The peak of this is how I looked at it,
the peak.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Of knowledge, relationships, experience, and energy. And I said, if
I don't do this right now, I don't know if
I said what about don't do it now, I likely
never will and I don't know if anybody black who
(02:26):
is who is willing to do this.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
So I have to do this.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
So I understood there was a business there. I understood
there was an audience there. But the old added, if
you build it, they will come. That it had to happen.
Somebody had to make the decision, so I didn't. It
wasn't about, hey, let's try to go people like man,
I wish you go back to seeing an MSNBC no interest,
because here was a lesson I learned even there.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Now I was at the CNN.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
They couldn't get anybody to interview Winnie Mandela. She was
coming to town at Birmingham, Alabama.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So they came to me.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I was like, yeah, sure, so I go to Birmingham
interview winning Mandela had about twenty twenty five minutes. So
a week later I get a phone call and they go, hey,
this is people in Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
We're look at the interview.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Why didn't you ask her about the trial and this
and this? And I said, why the hell, y'all an interview?
I asked her what I wanted to ask her. I said,
why the hell y'all donna ask your They then said,
we're not going to run the interview.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I said, okay.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I went to John Klein, it was a president seeing
in US, and went to his office, said, Hey, your
folks in Atlanta ain't gonna run the Winni Mandela interview,
So can you just give it to me, give me Privige,
give it to me, and I'm going to run it
on my TV one show.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
John's like, yeah, cool.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I went to When I went to DC, we went
to the CNN bureau, they dubbed the interview over because
it was on this different tape.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Hand to us.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
We ran it on the show and here's the deal.
March twenty eighteen, I'm in Memphis, one month before the assassin,
the Commemorational Assassination. Winnie Mandela dies and I'm there and
I hit my guy. I said, we're gonna restream it.
I interviewed Reverend Jesse Jackson Senior. I interviewed Randall Randall
Robinson about Winnie Mandela, and we restreamed that. The only
(04:19):
reason you can see my interview with Winnie Mandela was
because I had a black on media platform where I
could air it and if I didn't have that to
this seeing in. That thing will be sitting on a
tape on the shelf at Seeing Inn.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
And no one has ever seen it.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
And that's the difference when you first of all own
a platform to be able to distribute a message.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Man, there's so much there. I want to dig in.
I want to lay a little bit more foundation first.
So all right, you decide I'm going to do this
on my own. For the people out there who are
saying no, no.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
No, no, I no no. I didn't decide something did
on my own.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I went to every major black media company, and none
of it wanted to partner.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
I went to them. I understood the business. This is.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
This is sort of how I saw. First of all,
you gotta take it back even further. I had the
TV one show I had heard. I was talking to
people that that that that the show was in jeopardy
and I said, okay, so I simply proposal. And so
here's what happened. I was see, this is why you
have to be a student of the business. So I'm
(05:37):
sitting here and I'm like, okay, you know, how can
we re engineer this, how can we look at this differently?
And so remember dish Nation. I was sitting there and
I was watching it, and this when Ricky Spider was
a part of it, and so it was airing on
TV one. But then I saw dish Nation was online.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
So we went to our affiliate person. I said, I
got a question for you. It's I'm curious, how is
this nation?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Because I knew that we couldn't stream we had limits
of what we could stream online eight on TV one.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I said, how are we able to do this? And
they said, oh, we have the cable rights. So you got.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Cable rights, got broadcast rights, you've got digital rights.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
And then of course international rights are separate. They said,
but we have the cable rights. That's why it's online.
And I went bingo. So this is what I did.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I put a proposal together and I said, okay, the
problem that we have with News one now is that
it's on TV one.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
We're not marketing it outside the channel.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
We have a loyal audience, but it's too small and
they were doing a million advertising a year. The show
was costing forty five million. So I said okay, and
I knew there was a digital audience. So the proposal
I sent them was why don't y'all let me take
ownership of the show. I'm gonna make it a digital shown.
(07:14):
You can pay me, so it was costing you five
you can pay me a licensing fee of three point
five three or two point five million. I will produce
the show, and we have a partnership where we're able
to sell the digital sell piece. You already have the infrastructure,
(07:35):
and then that can be a rev share. They never
responded to the proposal. The show gets canceled. When I
decided to launch this, I gave them another proposal. Why
don't you I got to Radio one, Why don't you
partner with me with what I'm launching. I said, you
can invest five hundred thousand, and this is what I'm
(07:58):
gonna do. This is what I'm gonna deliver. We could
do a rampsure on the advertising, no interest. I talked
to Black Enterprise.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I talked to Rich Dennis over at Essence.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
I remember Morgan and I had a conversation at Blavity,
I remember, and that was just but it was just.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
And I talked to.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Numerous people because I understood all of these entities already
had the AD infrastructure. They had the AD infrastructure the
back in infrastructure, and.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
That none of them were even doing what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
So my deal was, this is the value add proposition.
You need to be able to sell more units, and
so here's how we can utilize streaming. Nobody wanted to partner,
so I said, okay, I'm gonna do it, and I
went ahead and did it myself. But I wasn't but
I was trying to find a black media partner and
(08:49):
no one wanted to and so I said, okay, I'm
gonna go ahead and do it, and that's what we did.
Host
Will Lucas
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