CableFAX: 86. Mr. Personality: Johnathan Rodgers
Johnathan Rodgers
Title: President/CEO, TV One
Age: Hit against Satchel Paige
Education: BA, Berkeley; MA, Stanford
Social Media Quotient: 1
Why Him? Rodgers continues to lead TV One’s shift from lifestyle and entertainment to real-life and entertainment programming. That’s allowed for more personality-driven fare, including new Sun talk series Washington Watch with Roland Martin. The network’s new focus led to unprecedented ’08 election coverage that resulted in a ’09 Best Practices Award from the National Association of Black Journalists.
Numbers Game: Can Rodgers broker more launches for TV One and the new TV One-HD? And can he ensure that TV One’s resonance in the African American community isn’t lost in these soft economic times?
Year Ahead:
TV One faces new competition from MTV-BET joint venture Centric.
Favorite Food: Tex-Mex
Favorite Restaurant: The Big Four
Drink of Choice: Mojito
Prediction for Cable in 2010: Up, up, up
When I Need to Recharge, I…: Read old-fashioned, hard-cover books.
Last Book Read: The Oceans of Eternity by S.M. Stirling
Favorite iPhone/Blackberry App: All the radio apps
Twitter is…: A passing fancy.
A Day Without Facebook is…: Every day
Trait I Admire Most in People: Kindness