Silver Spring, MD and New York — TV One (www.tvoneonline.com) will be the exclusive cable broadcast partner of the 2010 ESSENCE Music Festival, which features the biggest names in entertainment and the nation’s most influential speakers, artists, authors and leaders and is the nation’s largest annual gathering celebrating African-American music and culture. TV One will offer viewers a glimpse into the Festival experience through performance highlights featuring today’s greatest African American artists and a behind-the-scenes look at the three-day cultural extravaganza.
This marks the second consecutive year that TV One has served as the cable broadcast partner of the Festival and only the third time in its history that ESSENCE has made its Festival performances available for television broadcast. The network’s programming will include two world premiere specials:
TV One Night Only: Live from the ESSENCE Music Festival. This 90-minute highlights celebration, scheduled to premiere in August 2010, will capture exhilarating performances from some of the biggest names in entertainment that occur over three nights on the main stage, which are expected to include Janet Jackson, Anita Keys, Mary J. Blige, LL Cool J, Earth, Wind & Fire, Raphael Saadiq, Gladys Knight and Charlie Wilson. A collection of short interstitial packages will connect these heart-stopping musical performances with intimate, unprecedented celebrity access that only Essence can provide its fans. The special will chronicle rehearsals and preparations of the most dazzling stars and capture personal exchanges between the artists – some for the first time, some as old friends reuniting. And, TV One Night Only will take the viewer where no other camera is allowed, to deliver the true emotion of the talent backstage.
ESSENCE Presents: Faith in 2010 – Five years after the devastation of Katrina, the city of New Orleans and its residents struggle to heal amidst yet another catastrophe. With oil floating thick in the water that had sustained much of their economic recovery, the people of New Orleans lean on faith, family and community more than ever to weather their storms. The one-hour special is an insightful and emotional documentary that primarily chronicles two daughters of New Orleans, tracing their trials and triumphs amidst the backdrop of the EMF weekend. Their personal stories will be interwoven with inspiring footage from EMF’s Empowerment Seminars and Gospel Salute, including appearances by Mary J. Blige, Juanita Bynum, Hill Harper and many others. Viewers will experience the Empowerment Seminars offered at the Festival through the eyes of these everyday women in a seamless film that marries documentary-style narrative and soul-stirring performance.
“ESSENCE is pleased to partner again with TV One for what promises to be two very exciting and original television events,” said ESSENCE President Michelle Ebanks. “These two specials — TV One Night Only: Live from Essence Music Festival and ESSENCE Presents: Faith in 2010 – will be both entertaining and inspiring;taking the Festival experience straight from New Orleans right into the living rooms of fans all over the country.”
“TV One is proud to team up again with the Essence Music Festival,” said TV One President and CEO Johnathan Rodgers. “Michelle Ebanks, Angela Burt-Murray and their Essence team have created an amazing cultural event, which proved to be very popular with TV One viewers last year, and we expect to see a similar response to these television events this year.”
In addition to the two world premiere specials, TV One has three full days of activities planned for the festival, including meet and greet sessions at TV One’s booth (#700) at the New Orleans Convention Center with network talent, such as LisaRaye, star of the hit reality series, ‘LisaRaye: The Real McCoy;’ Omarosa and the bachelors from the hot new series, ‘Donald J. Trump Presents The Ultimate Merger;’ music superstars ‘K-Ci and Jojofrom the upcoming reality series, K-Ci and Jojo. . .Come Clean;’ Chef G. Garvin, and Elise Neal, featured in the new season of ‘Life After;’ plus, TV One-sponsored celebrity appearances on the Experience stage hosted by Christopher “Kid” Reid.
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