BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Earvin “Magic” Johnson is launching a basic cable television network targeting black viewers with positive, uplifting images of African Americans.<\/p>\n
The former\u00a0Los Angeles Lakers<\/a>\u00a0star tells the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/a>\u00a0that his 24-hour Aspire channel also will offer opportunities for blacks who have struggled to find work in mainstream Hollywood.<\/p>\n Aspire’s mix will include film, TV, music, comedy, performing arts and shows about faith.<\/p>\n The 52-year-old Johnson, who serves as an NBA analyst for ESPN and ABC, was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002. He says he’s wanted a vehicle to showcase positive images of African Americans with stories written, produced and directed by blacks.<\/p>\n Comcast Corp. reached an agreement with the FCC and Department of Justice to diversify.<\/p>\n Johnson’s channel will launch on June 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Earvin “Magic” Johnson is launching a basic cable television network targeting black viewers with positive, uplifting images of African Americans. The former\u00a0Los Angeles Lakers\u00a0star tells the\u00a0Los Angeles Times\u00a0that his 24-hour Aspire channel also will offer opportunities for blacks who have struggled to find work in mainstream Hollywood. Aspire’s mix will include<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-true-talk-on-celebs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/weseelies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/weseelies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/weseelies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weseelies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weseelies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/weseelies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":950,"href":"http:\/\/weseelies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions\/950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/weseelies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weseelies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weseelies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}