TEMPO Networks, the pan Caribbean media company that has operated out of Newark since 2007, is marking its 21st anniversary by launching TEMPO Africa, a new initiative built through a landmark partnership with Zambia’s Lusaka Carnival. The announcement extends a network already reaching more than 3.5 million viewers across the Caribbean into an entirely new continent, with the explicit goal of building a lasting cultural and economic bridge between Africa and the Caribbean through media, tourism, and the creative industries both regions are known for.

A Network Born at MTV, Now Independently Run From New Jersey

TEMPO’s own origin traces back to founder Frederick A. Morton Jr., who conceived the idea while serving as a senior executive at MTV Networks, holding the title of senior vice president and deputy general counsel overseeing litigation, intellectual property, and pre broadcast review. Once his concept was approved in 2005, TEMPO launched as an MTV Networks property with Morton serving as general manager, built around a straightforward but ambitious goal, creating a unifying, high quality media platform connecting Caribbean islands and countries that Morton believed shared far more culturally than their individual differences suggested.

Morton acquired the network outright from MTV and Viacom in 2007, relocating its headquarters from MTV’s New York offices to Newark, where it has remained independently owned and operated ever since. Today TEMPO broadcasts across 24 Caribbean islands and reaches roughly 3.5 million viewers regionally, while also serving large diaspora communities throughout the United States, including in Atlanta, Boston, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston. In the tri state area specifically, TEMPO reaches its home audience directly through Cablevision Channel 1105 across New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, alongside a 24 hour live internet stream.

Why Zambia, and Why Now

TEMPO Africa’s formal launch is tied directly to the Lusaka Carnival in Zambia, scheduled for November 20th and 21st, 2026, giving the new venture a concrete, high visibility cultural event to build around from day one rather than launching as an abstract expansion announcement alone. Pairing a Caribbean media institution with an African carnival celebration reflects the same underlying philosophy that has guided TEMPO since its founding, using shared cultural touchpoints, music, dance, carnival tradition, and creative industry, as the connective tissue between communities that have historically been treated as culturally distant despite deep, shared ancestral ties.

The timing carries real significance for TEMPO’s own institutional story as well, arriving in the same year the network celebrates 21 years since Morton first pitched the idea inside MTV’s offices. Rather than treating the anniversary purely as a retrospective moment, TEMPO has used it to launch what amounts to the network’s most geographically ambitious expansion to date, moving beyond its established Caribbean and North American diaspora footprint into direct partnership with the African continent itself.

A Newark Institution With Deep Local Roots

TEMPO’s New Jersey presence extends well beyond its corporate address. The network has become an active presence in Newark’s own cultural calendar, having just presented the third annual Newark Caribbean Festival on August 15th at Mulberry Commons in downtown Newark, produced in partnership with the City of Newark and the Newark City Parks Foundation. That kind of direct civic partnership reflects how thoroughly TEMPO has embedded itself in Newark’s own identity over nearly two decades, functioning simultaneously as an internationally reaching media company and a genuine piece of the city’s local cultural infrastructure.

For a network that started as a single MTV side project focused on unifying Caribbean identity through television, TEMPO Africa represents a considerably larger vision taking shape from the same Newark offices that have anchored the company since 2007. Whether that vision translates into a lasting cultural and economic bridge between two continents will likely become clearer once the Lusaka Carnival partnership actually plays out this November, but the ambition behind the announcement itself, expanding a homegrown New Jersey media company’s reach onto an entirely new continent, marks a genuinely significant moment in TEMPO’s own 21 year history.