Black Information Network (BIN) is a

radio network There are two types of radio network currently in use around the world: the one-to-many (simplex communication) broadcast network commonly used for public information and mass-media entertainment, and the two-way radio ( duplex communication) type ...

and content brand owned by

iHeartMedia iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...

. Launched on June 30, 2020, it is an

all-news radio All-news radio is a radio format devoted entirely to the discussion and broadcast of news. All-news radio is available in both local and syndicated forms, and is carried on both major US satellite radio networks. All-news stations can run the ...

network of stations targeting the

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

community, carrying mostly important national news headline stories as well as current events and special interest features. Some stations also incorporate local news, traffic, weather and sports updates into the network feed. Tony Coles is the network's president and Tanita Myers is the news director.

History

On June 29, 2020, 15 iHeartMedia radio stations in markets with large

populations (including AM, FM, and

HD Radio HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for an in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. It generally simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD Radio is used ...

subchannel stations) ceased their regular programming, and began stunting with clips of speeches by prominent African Americans, such as

Malcolm X Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Is ...

's "

The Ballot or the Bullet "The Ballot or the Bullet" is the title of a public speech by human rights activist Malcolm X. In the speech, which was delivered on two occasions the first being April 3, 1964, at the Cory Methodist Church in Cleveland, Ohio and the second bei ...

" address, interspersed with messages stating that "our side of the story is about to be told", and promoting a major change in their programming at 12:00 p.m. EDT the next day. On June 30, 2020 at 12:00 p.m. EDT, iHeartMedia officially launched the Black Information Network (BIN) on the 15 stunting stations, carrying national news coverage catered to African American communities. The service draws from other iHeartMedia services for local traffic and weather updates, and promotes

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

s oriented towards the audience. The network will be carried by additional stations over time, and is also being distributed on the

iHeartRadio iHeartRadio (often shortened to just "iHeart") is an American freemium broadcast, podcast and radio streaming Computing platform, platform owned by iHeartMedia. It was founded in August 2008. , iHeartRadio was functioning as the national umbr ...

streaming platform. BIN also serves as the provider of news content for iHeartMedia stations carrying

format Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informatio ...

s that predominantly target African-Americans, including hip hop, R&B, and

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

. Stations not owned by iHeart may also subscribe to the service, with newscasts available at the :00 and :30 mark each hour. Alongside traditional advertising, BIN is also being backed by a group of "national founding partners", including

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...

CVS Health CVS Health Corporation (previously CVS Corporation and CVS Caremark Corporation) is an American healthcare company that owns CVS Pharmacy, a retail pharmacy chain; CVS Caremark, a pharmacy benefits manager; and Aetna, a health insurance provi ...

GEICO The Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO ) is a private American auto insurance company with headquarters in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It is the second largest auto insurer in the United States, after State Farm. GEICO is a wholly owne ...

Lowe's Lowe's Companies, Inc. (), often shortened to Lowe's, is an American retail company specializing in home improvement. Headquartered in Mooresville, North Carolina, the company operates a chain of retail stores in the United States and Canada. A ...

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

23andMe 23andMe Holding Co. is a publicly held personal genomics and biotechnology company based in South San Francisco, California. It is best known for providing a direct-to-consumer genetic testing service in which customers provide a saliva sample t ...

, and

Verizon Communications Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas i ...

which will air

outreach Outreach is the activity of providing services to any population that might not otherwise have access to those services. A key component of outreach is that the group providing it is not stationary, but mobile; in other words, it involves meetin ...

towards African-American communities on the network. Currently, the number of minutes each hour devoted to commercials is considerably lower than most radio networks. On September 10, 2020, iHeartMedia announced that it would acquire

WWRL WWRL (1600 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to New York City. WWRL airs an all-news radio format as an affiliate of the Black Information Network (BIN). The station is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. By day, WWRL broadcasts at 25,000 wat ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, a station that had historically carried formats serving the African American community, to carry BIN beginning November 2. BIN programming was previously available in the New York

radio market A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television station, television and radio broadcasting, ra ...

via 105.1

WWPR-FM WWPR-FM (105.1 FM) is an urban contemporary music radio station licensed to New York City. WWPR-FM is owned by iHeartMedia and broadcasts from studios in the former AT&T Building in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan; its transmitter is lo ...

's third

subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or digital terrestrial television, television Television station, station on the same radio freq ...

. On December 2, 2020, iHeartMedia announced that it would acquire Fort Worth's

KHVN KHVN (970 AM) is a radio station licensed to Fort Worth, Texas, and serving the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, owned and operated by iHeartMedia, Inc. It airs an African American targeted all-news radio format, simulcast with co-owned KKGM 16 ...

and its simulcast partner

KKGM KKGM (1630 AM) is a radio station licensed to Fort Worth, Texas, and serving the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, owned and operated by iHeartMedia. The station broadcasts an African American targeted news format, as one of two local affiliates, al ...

, with an intent for them to be BIN's stations in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, replacing their existing Black Gospel format.

Stations

* Asterisk (*) indicates

broadcast. * Gray background indicates low-power FM

translator Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

References

External links

* {{American broadcast radio IHeartRadio digital channels Radio stations established in 2020 African-American radio 2020 establishments in the United States