D’Angela Proctor: The Dynamo Behind TV-One Programming and Production

D'Angela Proctor4

D’Angela Proctor, the Sr. Vice President of Original Programming and Production for TV-One, recently spoke with this writer about TV-One’s new season.  Launched in January 2004, TV-One, serves 57 million households.  The cable network offers programming focused on real life, movies, music, sports, news via News One and entertainment which is designed to entertain and inform their diverse audience of Black viewers. In 2008, the company launched TV-One High Def, serving 14 million households.

Recently TV-One added to their roster, a crime show entitled, “For My Man,” which covers the real life experience of women in prison, most of whom are there as a result of their relationship with a man.

TV-One has a show called Fatal Attraction. We were looking for a companion piece for “Fatal Attraction.” I read somewhere that most women in prison are there directly or indirectly due to a situation connected to a man. The female population is the fastest growing population in prison. So the network wanted to highlight some of the crimes that went into those mass incarcerations. We tell multiple Bonnie & Clyde type stories. Self-defense stories wherein women kill their man because he was harming her, drug related crime stories and cases wherein women commit crimes due to her man’s prompting and/or out of fear of him,”explained Proctor.

Houston born, Proctor is a former labor and employment defense lawyer who decided she wanted to do something outside the profession of law. “I was an editor of my school paper and was exposed to media early on but did not realize that was the career path I wanted to pursue at the time. Instead, I went to Spellman College where I was a political science major. My plan was to become a mayor of a city. It was only after graduating I decided to do something in media. I started sending resumes to Oprah and Susan Taylor instead of HR, but Oprah and Susan never got back to me, so I went to law school. I did not enjoy law so I started interning at a record company. Eventually I made the connections that led to my starting a production company with 4 others. We produced music videos. Our company was called Strange Fruit. We did commercials for TLC, videos for Outcast, Nas, etc.” Then we moved into movies. We started flipping movies and then moved into television. We created a show for ministers called “Exalted.” and then went on to develop “Sunday Best,” The Family Crews and other projects.” We won the NAACP Award for “Sunday Best.” We were up against American Idol when we won so we were real thrilled about that,” chuckled the TV exec.

Proctor eventually got to work with Oprah after all when she created Love In the City a program that aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), that promoted the resilience of black women.

D’Angela had 15 years as an entrepreneur with her company Strange Fruit but eventually hit a cross road and since she had a son, decided to take on something that offered more stability. As part of Production and Programming on TV-One, D’Angela must continually come up with programs to excite the TV-One audience. Since reality shows are popular, she has concentrated on putting the “real” into reality. “Some reality is scripted. TV-One does not condone scripted reality. Of course, we cant just turn cameras on and hope to get something, so we produce the environment but we do not produce the reality. We try to make sure our cast has a relationship and there is a commonality among them before turning the cameras on,” explained D’Angela.

TV-One fans can look forward to other new programs during the Fall season such as Justice By Any Means, a program that chronicles people who go out of their way to solve crimes. A comedy series entitled “Born Again Virgin.” A bio series entitled Unsung Hollywood and in keeping with TV-One’s movie segment, “Welcome to the Family.” Roland Martin continues his dynamic news interviews as part of News One. And crime show and reality show enthusiasts will have plenty of fodder to keep them interested. November promises the show H-Town and a documentary on Jennifer Holliday and Nate Dogg.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *