TV One will return its music-themed documentary series Unsung for its 15th season on March 3 with a new lineup of legendary artist profiles. 

The series, produced for TV One by A. Smith & Co., has chronicled the lives and musical careers of some of the most iconic R&B, hip-hop, and gospel music during its 15-season run, including Billy Preston, Mary Wells, Rick James, DeBarge, The Clark Sisters, Heavy D, and Bootsy Collins. 

The upcoming season will feature such artists as Bobby Caldwell, Blaque, Chingy, Chuckii Booker, and Donald Lawrence, according to the company. 

Unsung executive producer Kysha Mounia says Unsung’s success and longevity lies in its ability to take a nostalgic look at legendary music artists that resonate with the network’s targeted Black audience. 

“It’s the music that captures everyone, because when you hear a specific song you are automatically transported to a place and time where it means something to you,” she said. 

Click below to hear more of the interview with Mounia on the latest episode of the “Content Spotlight” podcast.

TV One will look at the evolution of music and social consciousness of the 1970s  through the 2000s as part of a four-part series debuting February 27.

The series, Unsung Presents: The Decades, tells the chronological story of music, from Motown and disco in the 1970s and 1980s to the revolutionary sound and style of hip-hop in the 1990s and 2000s, said the network. Decades will also look at the role music played in influencing social and cultural events such as the Vietnam War, the crack cocaine & AIDS epidemic, and police brutality in American society. 

Artists featured in the documentary include Edwin Starr, The Floaters, Brick, Carl Carlton, Dazz Band, Teddy Riley, Public Enemy, Digital Underground and Tweet, said the network.

TV One will air the first two episodes of Decades on February 27, with episode three debuting April 17 and episode four premiering April 24. ■ 

June is Black Music Month, and few cable shows embody the celebration of African-American musical artists more than TV One’s long-running Unsung. In its recently concluded 14th season, the docuseries — which has profiled performers ranging from Teddy Pendergrass to Rick James to DeBarge — finished as the network’s most-watched series and the most-watched show during its Sunday 10 p.m. time slot among African-American viewers, according to Nielsen.

With a new season already in the works, Unsung executive producer in charge of production Jason Ryan spoke to Multichannel News about the A. Smith & Co.-produced show’s longevity, as well as its strategy to attract younger viewers while remaining relevant to its core audience of adults 25-54.

MCN: How has Unsung helped to define TV One’s brand?

Jason Ryan:Unsung is our longest-running and our award-winning series. It’s one of those series that defines the network: People know TV One for Unsung just because it’s been running for so long. We get such a great response from fans and viewers, and many of the artists that have participated over the years have been really excited about being a part of the show.

MCN: What has the show done to help influence the business of music?

JR: It’s really important to provide a platform that really tells the story of influential black artists in this intimate type of setting. We celebrate their music, but we also tell their story. It’s just a really impactful platform, not only for the network but also culturally. Most of the time we hear artists when they are performing at a concert or they’re interviewing about a new project. This is a way to get into their story and give them a platform that you rarely see in the mainstream.

MCN: After initially focusing on artists from the ’60s and ’70s, more recent seasons of Unsung have also featured ’80s and ’90s artists. Has that introduced the series to a new generation of viewers?

JR: Incorporating some of those more-recent artists has helped broaden the scope of the show. Early on, it was more ’60s and ’70s artists, but as we’ve introduced some ’90s artists, those episodes have been received very well. As the show goes on through the years and we begin to separate from the eras, we can go back to those artists in the ’90s and 2000s because the show has been on for so long. That allows us to choose from an even larger pool of artists for future episodes that are more familiar to younger viewers.

MCN: Are you looking to make any changes to the format going forward?

JR: We’ve been talking long-term about some ways to tweak the show and make it stronger, but in the end it’s the artists and stories that make the show stand out. For the first time this past season, during our Dru Hill episode, we added an Unsung digital element in which an artist that’s featured performs a song live. For us, it’s not so much about changing the show, but more about evolving the show so that we can further engage the viewer and the artists. 

History’s Jesus: His Life documentary series averaged 1.4 million viewers (Nielsen Live+same day ratings) in its four-week run, History executives said.

The eight-episode series, which debuted March 25 and concluded April 15, explores the story of Jesus Christ through the people in his life who were closest to him, with each of the eight chapters told from the perspective of different biblical figures, including Joseph, John the Baptist, Mary Mother of Jesus, Caiaphas, Judas Iscariot, Pontius Pilate, Mary Magdalene and Peter, said the network. 

History premiered two new episodes each week of the series' four-week run. 

History will air a Jesus: His Life marathon April 21, one of several original religious and gospel-themed programs airing Easter Sunday.

BET on Sunday will air coverage of the 34th Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards hosted by Kirk Franklin, according to the network. Franklin on Sunday will also be profiled as part of TV One’s docu series Uncensored, while gospel star Tasha Cobbs Leonard will be the focus of the African-American targeted network’s music-themed series Unsung. 

When it comes to musical icons, there are few names and personalities bigger than Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, The Notorious B.I.G, New Edition or Tupac Shakur.

On cable, those artists are among many music legends featured in original movie biopics, scripted series and limited series that are aimed at longtime fans, but also bring young, diverse audiences to their respective networks.

Original movies such as Lifetime’s Michael Jackson: Searching for Neverland, limited scripted series like CMT’s Sun Records — about when Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins were starting out at the famed Nashville studios — and miniseries like BET’s The New Edition Story are giving viewers shows to tap their feet to while illuminating the lives of favorite musical performers.

“Biopics on their own have always been a way to do a true story, and with music added, it just elevates the entertainment value,” Tanya Lopez, Lifetime’s senior vice president of original movies, said. “I think people come to these shows to learn something different about these artists — it’s not just Behind the Music,” referring to VH1’s venerable music-documentary series.

More From the Cable Content Issue:TV’s Wild New Frontier|Andy Cohen, Fox Make A ‘Love Connection’

Though music biopics are not new to the television landscape, networks have recently turned up the volume on the genre, especially with more recent artists (than, say, The Beatles) intriguing both younger and older viewers. The more contemporary music stars have a built-in audience from millions of social-media followers — and the older stars are being rediscovered by young millennials.

Lopez said the network’s musical biopics — which includes this past February’s Britney Ever After, on the life and career of Britney Spears, and previous films showcasing R&B legends Toni Braxton and Whitney Houston — have appealed to younger, more diverse viewers that extend beyond Lifetime’s target demo of women 25-54.

Connecting With Music Fans
“It’s an audience that was really connected to music and, more specifically, to the period when they listened to that artist’s music,” she said.

BET’s January three-part miniseries The New Edition Story, about the 1980s R&B group, drew more than 29 million viewers across its three-night run, many of them young viewers discovering the group for the first time.

BET CEO Debra Lee said the series combined the group’s triumphs and tribulations over the years with familiar songs that appealed to a broad cross-section of viewers in a scripted format that tends to underscore the drama of the storytelling better than a traditional documentary feature.

The series’ success has led BET to develop a spinoff miniseries about New Edition member Bobby Brown.

“Scripted really gives us a chance to be authentic and create drama from a storyline, as opposed to a reality setting,” Lee said.

Of course, viewers who watch biographical flicks about music stars expect artists’ top hits to be part of the soundtrack. But music isn’t always needed to convey the movie’s message. Michael Jackson: Searching for Neverland, for example, focused more on Jackson’s relationship with his three children than on the King of Pop’s musical portfolio. It pulled in 2 million viewers for the May 29 premiere, Lifetime’s second biggest original movie of the year behind the January remake of Beaches, according to Lopez.

“When you’re talking about biopics on these musical artists, the challenge is to tell a part of the story that no one has heard,” Lopez said. “This was more about his personal life than his entertainment life where he was actually creating and performing music, but you can still use the musical star that is Jackson to grab the audience’s attention.”

USA Network will dance to a different beat with the upcoming limited series about the life and death of hip hop icons Biggie “Notorious B.I.G.” Smalls and Tupac Shakur. The true-crime anthology series, Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G., delves into the police investigations of the 1996 fatal shooting of Shakur and the 1997 murder of Smalls.

Alex Sepiol, USA’s senior vice president of development, said the series, slated to debut in 2018, hopes to draw fans of mysteries, period dramas and the music industry, as well as fans of the two artists.

“Ideally there are a lot of entry points for people … it’s a fascinating investigation and case that intersects with these distinctly American icons of Biggie and Tupac,” Sepiol said. “It’s finding that overlap of a really good mystery and compelling narrative that also touches on the world of hip hop.”

Docuseries as Film Fodder
The success of these productions has cable executives looking in-house for inspiration and material for new music biopics.

TV One, for example, is looking to convert episodes of its long-running Unsung documentary series into scripted biopics after finding ratings success with the 2016 movie Love Under New Management: The Miki Howard Story, which became the network’s most widely viewed original movie, according to officials.

TV One is planning two 2018 Unsung-influenced movies based on R&B groups DeBarge and Xscape, as well as a biopic this year about Bobbi Kristina, the daughter of Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown.

“Our Unsung movies are setting the standard for biopics of music artists,” D’Angela Proctor, TV One senior vice president of original programming and production, said. “We have a treasure trove of musical shows from Unsung to build our movies around.”

Looking to build greater appeal with viewers, TV One will increase its original programming outlay by 10% over the next year with a mix of scripted comedies, original movies and celebrity-driven reality content, network executives said during TV One’s upfront presentation Tuesday afternoon.

Overall the African-American targeted network is planning to deliver more than 460 hours of original programming over the next year, according to network president Brad Siegel. As part of the increase, the network plans to develop some 16 original movies as it looks to create a monthly Saturday night movie block targeting adult 25-54 year old viewers, added D’Angela Proctor, TV One senior vice president of original programming and production.

Among the new scripted content set to roll out in 2015-16 is Mitch N' Max, a scripted comedy that follows a down and out Wall Street broker who is forced to move in with his estranged hip hop artist friend; and Born Again Virgin, which follows the relationships of three female best friends. The network is also developing as pilots The Family Plot, a comedy about a former beauty queen who unexpectedly inherits a funeral home from her deceased husband; and Brooklyn Faith, about a small community that encounters moral conflict in its attempt to balance professional ambition with its personal lives. 

On the unscripted side, the network will launch later this year real crime shows For My Man, which features the shocking stories of women who have been arrested for crimes they committed in the name of love, and Unstoppable, which profiles heroic men and women who stopped at nothing to find justice for a murdered loved one. Other new shows include The Next 15 which follows a group of male and female former reality stars that crave another 15 minutes of fame; and The Weekly Show, a one hour-parody of a fledgling local news program.

Unscripted pilots include Debutantes, which offers a behind-the-scenes look at young ladies preparing for womanhood and their society debut; Biker Girlz, which follows a female biker club; It’s Good To Be Me, which profiles the lives of Black America’s most famous celebrities and well-known public figures and Strippers, a documentary series that chronicles women who live regular lives by day and make a living as strippers by night.   

On the specials front, TV One will team with PBS to present The Gospel Tradition: In Performance at the White House, and with Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network for The Triumph Awards, according to Siegel

The new series and specials will join returning series Hollywood Divas,Fatal Attraction, Unsung,Unsung Hollywood, News One Now and Verses and Flow, said Proctor.

TV One will return its docu-music series Unsung on July 30 with 10 new episodes, according to network officials.

The series, which profiles R&B stars that were stars but never received superstar status, will feature in its upcoming new episodes such performers as Montell Jordon, Hi Five, The Emotions, Martha Wash, Troop, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Wilson Pickett, The Chi-Lites, Peaches & Herb and Rick James, said network officials.

“As an intimate portrait of the lives of some of music’s most captivating artist, Unsung remains a celebration of their impact on both the recording industry and culture alike,” said D’Angela Proctor, senior vice president of Programming and Production for TV One.  “By illuminating the stories of trials and triumphs in the upcoming slate, the legend of these iconic musicians will be sure to grow within the hearts and memories of our audience.”