Bobby Cartwright Jr. is the biggest Cincinnati TV producer you've never heard of.
For more than two decades, the Liberty Township resident has produced the Gospel Superfest Holiday concert airing in national syndication coast-to-coast — including WLWT-TV on Christmas Eve — and on the nationwide BET cable channel.
"We've been in national syndication for 23 years. We're in 100 markets," says Cartwright, a former Greater Cincinnati morning radio host and R&B guitarist who toured with the Ohio Players and the disco-funk band Heatwave.
The Dayton native's Gospel Superfest concept has grown from a single concert in Louisville in 2000 into a series of five Gospel Superfest TV shows each year, plus other programming for BET, TBN, TV One, Bounce and the Gospel Music Channel.
Gospel Superfest Holiday 2023¸ hosted by Rocsi Diaz (formerly of BET's 106 & Park show), will air Christmas Eve here on WLWT-TV (2-3 p.m., Channel 5) and nationally on BET (9 p.m.). Los Angeles and New York City stations will broadcast a two-hour version during the holidays. It will also air in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and other big and small markets across the country this month, and on New Year's Day on WHIO-TV in Dayton, Cartwright says.
The concert, taped Sept. 23 in Jacksonville, Fla., features Pastor Donnie McClurkin, Pastor John P. Kee, Jekalyn Carr, Minster Beverly Crawford, Koryn Hawthorne, Melvin Crispell III, Shirley Murdock, Ricky Dillard & New G, Demetrius West & JP, Doe, Crystal Aikin, Kazual, The Dewitt Cooper Dancers and others.
The WLWT-TV and BET shows include the presentation of a 2023 Most Notable Achievement Award to Hamilton County Commissioner Alicia Reece for establishing the Cincinnati Black Music Walk of Fame.
Some of the Jacksonville concert segments will air next year in Cartwright's four other annual shows: Gospel Superfest Salute to Black History, Gospel Superfest Spring Jam, Gospel Superfest Salute to Black Music and Gospel Superfest Back to School.
So here was my question: How can a Liberty Township resident be such a prolific national TV producer?
"The way electronic technology is today, it's where you set up shop. We have our own production shop here. We edit and do post-production here," says Cartwright, who met his future wife Renita as a Kentucky State University music student his freshman year in 1975. They married in 1990 and eventually settled in West Chester Township, convenient to reach Renita's mother in Mount Healthy and Bobby's mom in Dayton.
"This is a great place to live and to raise kids. We think of Los Angeles, New York or Atlanta — the new Black Hollywood — as production centers, but they're just a phone call away, or a Zoom away," Cartwright says.
After studying classical music in college, Cartwright played bass, lead guitar and keyboards with several R&B bands. He toured with the Ohio Players and Heatwave, and played on many studio recording sessions. And he developed a lot of bad habits.
"I had a bout with drugs, addicted to cocaine and other substances," he says.
"I was born again in 1987. That's when I hung up my shiny boots. I've been drug-free since 1987. I decided to use my talents to glorify the Lord as best I can. I don't play 'church music' well, but I can engineer and produce."
Cartwright was the morning drive host on Covington's tiny WCVG-AM (1320) after it switched to a gospel format in 1993. He trained Tracie Hunter, who bought the station a couple years later.
From 1995 to 2004, he was sales manager at Dayton's WVCT-TV, a low-power WB affiliate. He got the idea for the Gospel Superfest TV show after WB51's anniversary Winterfest concert at Dayton's Memorial Hall in 1998.
His first Gospel Superfest was a three-night concert in Louisville's Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts in 2000 with 10 acts a night.
It grew from there.
He's taped the annual Gospel Superfest three times in New York; four times in Atlanta; twice in Chicago, Baltimore, Columbus, Dayton and Jacksonville; plus in Memphis, Raleigh, NC, and Cincinnati. More than 7,500 people attended the 10th anniversary Allstate Gospel Superfest Presented by Procter & Gamble at Xavier University's Cintas Center in January 2010. (The 2022 and 2021 concerts were only broadcasts due to the pandemic.)
Cartwright has expanded the franchise. He's produced over 400 TV episodes for BET, TBN, TV One, Bounce and Gospel Music Channel. When the Bounce channel started in 2011 his Gospel Superfest Backstage was the 7-8 a.m. lead-in for Soul Train for two years.
"After we did the Winterfest concerts in Dayton, I decided in 2000 to do the granddaddy of them all," Cartwright says.
And he did.
