Bounce TV is set to launch a new show titled “Ed Gordon,” featuring the award-winning journalist of the same name. The African American network’s first foray into the primetime news magazine format will premiere on Tuesday, Sept. 13 at 10 p.m. ET.
Gordon feels the magazine format will help the show succeed.
“This gives us an opportunity to grow a show and grow it smartly,” Gordon told TheWrap. “News can be a very costly venture and sometimes when you enter into it, with a fledgling network, you can’t do all that you hope. So with this show, I think that we are going to be able to provide great content in a way that, I think, we can handle.”
Gordon brings respectability to Bounce TV, as he’s interviewed everyone from President Obama to O.J. Simpson. He has been a contributing correspondent for “60 Minutes,” “The Today Show” and “Dateline NBC.” Now Gordon gets to produce the exact program that he’s always wanted to do.
“We’ll provide perspective and give our audience a more complete picture of the major issues,” Gordon said. “I’ll be able to talk one-on-one with the day’s newsmakers and celebrities and get them to open up.”
Gordon admits that getting some key figures like Simpson to open up is a “a challenge,” but says that’s what his audience has grown to expect from him.
“They [the interview subjects] understand I’m going to ask certain questions, but I’ll be fair about it and I’m not going to change the context of what they said once we get in the edit room,” he said. “At some point you just build good will and understanding that you’re going to be fair.”
Bounce TV is the fastest-growing African-American network and Gordon feels it will continue to grow, but understands the market dictates how big it can get.
“I hope that you’ll be able to see, not just with this show, but some real steady growth in some other things that we’ll be able to bring to Bounce,” Gordon said. “The world of media that I’m in is completely different than the world of media that I entered into.”