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TAVIS SMILEY
All Smiles for New TV Show (Premiering Tonight On PBS)

"Late night just woke up." That's the tagline PBS (Public Broadcasting System) is using to promote the new Tavis Smiley show premiering late-night, tonight.
While the show is new, Smiley is no stranger to television talk. In fact, that's where his beginnings are when he came on the scene on a growing cable channel called BET.

Time has passed, and BET and Smiley have since parted, but Smiley never stopped talking. Life after BET has not been slow. Smiley launched his relationship with public radio two years ago and the ratings and audience have brought him back to the small screen. It’s not just another show
for Tavis, it’s a new show – and he’s excited about it. "I was making the distinction with someone the other day that it’s one thing to enter a new year, it’s another thing to go into another year. For me it's a ‘new’ year because there are so many things in this year that we’re going to be doing that I've never done before, including this TV show. I've done television before, but this is uniquely different because I happen to be the first person ever, black or white, to do a radio show on NPR, public radio, and the opportunity to do a late night show – every night, on PBS, public television. So it’s going to be a fascinating journey to see how we can make this hybrid of an opportunity work," he said about the new gig.

Smiley reiterated his excitement to be back on TV, and mentioned that apparently he’s not the only one happy about his return to talk TV. "I can't tell you the enthusiasm that I've been met with by black folk across America. It's going to be a lot of fun and I’m ready for it," he said.

The success of his NPR show has been so great that executives at public television began to take notice. Smiley explains that they approached him with the proposal that if he could do half of what he’s done on public radio for public television, it would make a lot of sense. "What we've done in public radio is bring in the most ethnically diverse audience that public radio has ever had, and to bring in the youngest demographic that public radio has ever had. We've brought in a younger audience and a more "colored" audience, if you will," Smiley explained. “And let’s face it, we now live in the most multicultural, multiracial ethnic America ever, and I declare being black sooner or later has got to be in vogue.
So I think, as Jesse Jackson would say, our time has come."


There's lots MORE from Tavis at EURweb.
eurweb.com/articles/headlines/01052004/headlines1266801052004.cfm