Family-Friendly Streamer BLKFAM Launches Today With Wide Range of Inclusive, Black-Focused Titles

Black audiences are consuming media at a higher rate than any other segment in the United States. A recent report published by Nielsen shows that Black viewers spend 81 hours per week consuming media. However, despite those staggering numbers, 68.5% of African American viewers say they feel underrepresented when watching TV. The new streaming service BLKFAM, which launches for customers on Monday, Feb. 26, is aiming to address that disparity.

• BLKFAM is launching with 20+ syndicated series and more than 1,000 hours of new animated content.
• Ten original live-action titles meant exclusively for BLKFAM are also in development.
• BLKFAM will be available on a wide variety of platforms, including Apple TV, Roku, Prime Video Channels, and more.

BLKFAM will offer viewers both licensed titles and original programming. The streamer will launch with more than 20 syndicated series in its library, as well as 1,000+ hours of new animated content and hundreds of hours of music-focused content as well. The streamer will also offer live-action originals, as 10 such series are now in development on BLKFAM. The platform will offer a wide range of genres, including investigative journalism and news, fitness and wellness series, Black history, children’s and adult animation, sitcoms and reality shows, and music.

“Black culture and content is so often stereotyped, siloed or written off – so I wanted to create a platform where my kids and I can be entertained without having to face those same daily biases,” BLKFAM founder and CEO Larry Adams said. “By curating authentic content – proven through data and AI – primarily from Black storytellers, we’ve built a service reflecting true inclusion and diversity, where Black parents and children especially can feel holistically represented.”

Adams is a former WarnerMedia executive and had a large role in bringing its streaming service HBO Max (now simply Max) to market. He is now drawing on that experience to launch the new service.

“When I was developing the HBO Max go to market strategy, we identified that families are — from a business perspective — they are the ones that are on multiple streaming services,” Adams told The Hollywood Reporter. “Most people are gonna have one or two, but families are gonna have up to eight, especially as we move to an unbundled world. You need a lot of different types of content sources for folks and I realized, no one’s addressing Black family streamers. We need content that is curated and that is okay to watch alone but certainly able to watch together.”

The service has already received buy-in from a big name: Whoopi Goldberg, an EGOT winner and now equity partner in BLKFAM.

“I have a 10-year-old great-granddaughter — and there isn’t a lot of content out there created by people who look like her, for her,” Goldberg explained to Variety. “I feel like we’re not always represented in the best possible way.”

Details about BLKFAM, such as the price of the service are still filtering out. The streamer’s website blkfam.tv is not live as of the time of its writing, despite the promise that the streamer was now available for subscribers. THR reports that BLKFAM will be ad-supported, and the press release announcing its creation confirms it will be available on iOS, Android, Amazon’s Prime Video Channels, Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, Samsung Smart TVs, Vizio, and LG sets.

What Other Black-Focused Streaming Services Are Currently Available?

Viewers who are intrigued by BLKFAM should also check out ALLBLK, which offers original titles like “Hush” and “Double Cross.” ALLBLK specializes in original drama series with high production values, but it also offers movies, network TV shows, and even stage plays on-demand and ad-free.

BET+ also offers thousands of hours worth of content specifically geared toward Black audiences. A joint venture between Tyler Perry and Paramount Global, BET+ features several series created specifically by Perry such as “All The Queen's Men,” “House of Payne,” “The Oval” and more. The service also carries movies, documentaries, and much more.

BLKFAM will join these streamers as services catering specifically to Black audiences. Black viewers consistently see better representation on linear TV than on streaming services, and BLKFAM is a new Black-owned streaming platform designed to increase the amount of diverse, inclusive titles available.