African American Owned Media..."The Catch 22"

I recently read a few articles on Adage about "The Catch 22 of Buying Black Media." I thought this post would be appropriate being that we just finished a lecture about reaching secondary markets. According to Adage, African American owned media has always been scarce and is becoming even more meager. Advertisers are not adequately reaching this market, and not investing as much money into black-owned media as they should. It is believed that reaching the African American market through black-owned media is hard because the "companies are small and very decentralized." In these articles it was suggested that if black owned media were more advance and successfully transitioned from print to online and had longevity in broadcasting then it could provide more reach for advertisers. " According to Chief Content Officer-Interactive Smokey Fontaine. If we can reach more African-Americans than our competitors at the other big media companies online, we can then offer more reach to advertisers."

The articles also addressed the fact that to effectively reach the African American market advertisers should invest more money in credible outlets. Support for black-owned media can create a solid foundation, increase market share and increase overall effectiveness in reach of this secondary market." Eric Blankfein, senior VP-channel insights director at Horizon Media, New York, said advertisers should not just look at traffic figures, noting that there are opportunities to gain more credibility with the audience by buying in outlets owned by African-Americans."

Lately there has been some progression. According to Adage, in 2001 Black Press established a national network and news portal called BlackPressUSA.com. Major players such as Sprint, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft have purchased ads on this site. This medium is not a phenomenon but with the help of major advertisers it can be the start of supporting the cause.

Do you think that black owned media in this industry is a a Catch 22 when considering its competition? Do you think that support for black owned media will increase reach and effectiveness of this market?