The founding group and initial ownership team included Martin Luther King III; former mayor of Atlanta, Georgia and ambassador of the United States to the United Nations Andrew Young and his son Andrew "Bo" Young III; and Rob Hardy and Will Packer, co-founders of Rainforest Films, a top African-American production company.
[2] Spearheading the network's creation were former Turner Broadcasting System executives Jonathan Katz and Ryan Glover with the pair having previously worked together with Tyler Perry to produce a number of high-order African-American sitcoms for TBS.
[4] The network formally launched on September 26, 2011 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time Zone, with the 1978 musical film The Wiz as its inaugural broadcast followed by A Raisin in the Sun with Do the Right Thing in primetime.
Unlike most digital multicast services (particularly with the January 2015 shutdown of Localish, which mainly carried first-run content), Bounce also produces its own original programming.
Shortly before its launch, Bounce TV reached an agreement with the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (a league that includes several historically black colleges and universities) to acquire the television rights to broadcast its American football and basketball games; the telecasts were produced by Urban Sports Entertainment Group.
[2] Bounce's HBCU-centered sports programming expanded in 2013 before ceasing prior to the 2014 season (with Aspire acquiring the rights to some of the HBCU football telecasts).
Affiliates also broadcast local public affairs programs, political specials, and college football and basketball games played by predominantly black schools.
Before its launch, Bounce TV actively sought affiliation agreements with various television station owners to make the network widely available throughout the United States.
[30] The Fox deal ended after the 2015 launch of game show channel Buzzr, with Bounce then moving in full to Univision stations after that point.
Although Bounce TV prefers that its local affiliates carry the entire schedule,[32] some affiliates regularly pre-empt certain network programs in order to air morning and/or prime time newscasts produced by the station specifically for the subchannel or public affairs programs (such as with WBTV in Charlotte and WAVE-TV in Louisville); this has become particularly more common since September 2015, when other Gray Television-owned stations in markets where the group does not maintain a duopoly (as is the case with WBTV and WAVE-TV, which launched theirs earlier) gradually began launching prime time newscasts on their Bounce TV-affiliated subchannels.
The service has access to start to a total of 111 films including Blacula, Cleopatra Jones, Foxy Brown, The Mack, Super Fly, and Shaft.
[37] The service has access to over 111 films including Blacula, Cleopatra Jones, Foxy Brown, The Mack, Super Fly, and Shaft.
[35] On Friday, August 4, 2017, Brown Sugar launched on Roku; boxing matches and in-season original Bounce series have since been added.