Network Tunes Los Angeles Into African Culture : Television: Nigerian-born Compton man uses his medium to showcase entertainment from his continent.

Over at network control, the cameras stop whenever somebody out front revs up a car or when a landing jetliner swoops overhead.

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That’s the way it is at the international television center run out of a storefront in South-Central Los Angeles--the one across the parking lot from Rick’s 99 Store and beneath the LAX runway approach.

Inside the headquarters of Afrikan Network Television is where Israel Bassey is quietly trying to carve out a media empire.

The 36-year-old Nigerian-born electronics technician has spent three years using television to showcase African entertainment. He does it because he feels his Los Angeles audience vastly underestimates that continent’s culture.

“Too many people think that Africa is a jungle,” a primitive place defined by tribal uprisings, uncontrolled famine and political corruption, Bassey said.

So that’s why you’ll see coverage of Zaire’s singing star Yondo instead of that country’s recent ebola virus outbreak on the weekly show he airs on two local UHF television channels.

There are videos of Ivory Coast pop singer Lucy Kole rather than footage of the four-year drought in Zimbabwe. Instead of reports about civil unrest and refugee camps in Rwanda, you’ll see a documentary on Nigerian juju musician King Sunny Ade.

Let ABC, NBC and the others report the bad news, Bassey said. His tiny ANTV will show another side.

Afrikan Network Television does it by airing home videos of African dancers and singers shot by Bassey’s friends and relatives. It also broadcasts professionally filmed music videos featuring African artists. Bassey purchases many of those at ethnic shops in Los Angeles.

ANTV got its start after the Compton resident grew tired of negative and stereotypical portrayals of his homeland on local television. His shows first aired on a Torrance cable company’s public access channel before Hollywood-based KMET-TV Channel 38 picked them up.

These days they are shown there and on the station’s companion Channel 24 in the San Fernando Valley at 9:30 a.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

The scope of the broadcasts widened two years ago when Bassey recruited two others to help.

Caribbean segments were added by Trinidad native Colin Roach, 46, of Carson. James L. Clark, 39, an African American from West Los Angeles, contributed local black programming.

The pair also kicked in cash.

Roach, an industrial engineer who spends evenings and weekends on TV work, estimates he has spent $25,000. He is now canvassing local beauty shops and other mom-and-pop businesses in hopes of selling half-minute commercials at $49 a pop.

“How long will I continue? Well, I’m too far gone now to turn back,” Roach said with a laugh.

Clark, who owns a telephone business, has contributed a similar amount. But he is convinced that ANTV is on the verge of breaking even.

“Communities now are so divided,” Clark said. “Our shows are bringing Africans and Caribbeans together. We plan to eventually have children’s programming and news. Our entertainment from Africa and the Caribbean is the real deal.”

KMET-TV manager Charles Lohr agrees. He said he is trying to syndicate ANTV programming to several national satellite-cable services--the long-established Black Entertainment Television and the newer World African Network in Atlanta.

ANTV is distinct from two other black-oriented shows on his station, Lohr said. One, called “The Chesima Series,” is a news magazine-type show produced by businesswoman Elizabeth Yaba, an Inglewood resident born in Sierra Leone. The other is a urban-contemporary music show called “My House.” It was created by Ron Williams, an American-born TV technician who lives in the Wilshire district.

Lohr said he is working with Bassey to upgrade the production quality of his shows.

That’s fine with those working at the storefront studio near the intersection of Manchester Boulevard and Broadway.

“It’s challenging, to say the least,” admitted show host Kamara Noelle Sams, a 22-year-old graduate student in broadcasting at USC who works at ANTV without pay in exchange for on-camera experience.

Sams toils in front of a backdrop that has been built next to painted-over store windows. Bolted to a low ceiling are withering floodlights--including bathroom-style heat lamps that have been pressed into service.

Sometimes it takes four hours to get a few minutes of usable tape, she said. Other times, a segment is edited from material that has been videotaped over several days--something that can lead to noticeable mismatches in clothing and hairstyle.

“We have to start over every time somebody starts up a car outside or a plane goes over or somebody forgets to unplug the phone and it rings during taping,” she said.

There will be plenty of bloopers for her friends to use if she becomes a famous TV personality, Sams said.

“I was thinking about that the other day,” she said. “If somebody gets ahold of these tapes, they’ll have plenty to put on ‘A Current Affair.’ ”