Hearst Media Productions Group (HMPG) has partnered with multicast television network Dabl to provide a three-hour block of educational and informational (E/I) programs on Sunday mornings.
The new programming block will debut on Dabl in early January, HMPG said in a statement. The shows will include “Harlem Globetrotters: Play It Forward,” “Wild Child with Sheinelle Jones,” “Oh Baby! with Janai Norman” and “Best Friends FurEver with Kel Mitchell.”
“HMPG’s weekly series resonate with today’s audience, delivering powerful reach in an evolving media landscape,” said Frank Biancuzzo, the President of HMPG. “Dabl is an exciting platform that’s attracting new viewers.”
Dabl is operated by Weigel Broadcasting and Paramount Global’s CBS Television Stations. It reaches more than 50 million homes via over-the-air broadcast television, and is also offered on a national basis through streaming pay TV systems like Frndly TV, Philo, YouTube TV and Hulu with Live TV.
Originally launched as a lifestyle channel, Dabl retooled its programming line-up last year with Black-strong comedies and series. Today, it airs shows like “Girlfriends,” “Moesha” and “Half & Half,” among others.
Over-the-air television stations are required to set aside a portion of their broadcast week to airing E/I-classified programs, which are intended to serve the educational and information needs of children, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The requirement was codified in the Children’s Television Act, which demands that licensed TV staions air at least 25 hours of E/I-classified programs every three months, though stations can relegate half of those hours to E/I programs aired on multicast networks.
Dabl is carried as a primary network affiliate on around a dozen full-power broadcast TV stations in different parts of the country, including Idaho, Iowa, Kansas and Ohio; the programming block provided by HMPG will allow it to clear the FCC’s E/I requirements on those stations, and help some affiliates that provide Dabl on a secondary digital channel move clear more of their weekend schedule for other types of programming.
“We are excited to welcome this entertaining and informative programming from HMPG to the Dabl Sunday schedule,” said Neal Sabin, Weigel’s Vice Chairman. “Our partnership with Hearst is strong on many levels, and this new programming further expands the availability of quality, family-friendly content for Dabl’s audience.”
HMPG’s programming portfolio includes more than 30 original series and hundreds of hours of original content, which is distributed on over-the-air TV and streaming video platforms.
