Photo Courtesy of ASU
April Ross, an alumna of Alabama State University (ASU), purchased WJCN TV-33, a radio station for which she once interned.
According to ASU, Ross majored in communication and began in the television industry as a low-level, behind-the-scenes production assistant. Now she’s the owner of WJCN-TV 33E, which she renamed “Bee-TV Network.”
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Ross shared her inspiration for the station came from a time when she decided to go rogue and report an incident of a sheriff being shot from her Facebook Live using her cellphone.
She said, “My news reporter instincts took over and in the absence of any TV news outlets here to report on it, I covered it on Facebook Live, which helped my social media presence to grow in excess of 15,000 followers. This was the catalyst for Bee-TV and ultimately contributed to my purchase of WJCN TV-33.”
Ross hopes that her new venture will be just as popular and accredited as the other news stations in the area.
“I want to create something in this television market that has never occurred before, and that includes creating and producing great local programming for our community that’s full of home-area content; to use this platform to provide our residents with what best suits their community needs, tastes, standards and interests, and do it while hiring and honing local talent into our TV on-air personalities,” Ross added.
Ross gives much of her credit to the university for teaching her what it takes to have the dedication to her profession and entrepreneurial skills.
“At ASU, I learned discipline, improved my on-air presence due to what I was taught in the University’s communication and speech classes; was taught both the basics and advanced principles in communications by an array of gifted faculty, and was taught to set goals and obtain them. My advice to present students is that you must first work hard, learn well and work through the hard times if you wish to obtain your dreams.”
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The station is “on-the-air through Spectrum, 24 hours a day, throughout 600,000 households and seen in 11 counties in both West Georgia and East Alabama.”