SILVER SPRING, Md. Fortified by caffeine and good will, the volunteer construction crew at Love Fellowship Tabernacle in Brooklyn worked long hours to transform a dingy storage area into the Kingdom Cafe. The hammering and plastering created a restaurant and gathering spot for young people at this Pentecostal church in the struggling East New York neighborhood.

As for the lights and camera, they were there for Divine Restoration, a TV One program that finds black churches needing a makeover and turns the process into television. TV One, based in this Washington suburb, is the cable channel with those sassy I See Black People advertising campaign. Devoted to black-themed programming, TV One is four years old next month and poised to make a profit for the first time next year. The only other black network is bigger and older: BET.

Now 27 years old it reaches about 85 million households and attracts trend-making, advertising-attractive 18-to-34-year-olds. But executives at the fast-growing TV One, in 42.2 million homes, are betting that there is a hunger among black viewers over 25 for programming aimed at them. At TV One that means no music-video shows or reality series about affluent teenagers or hell dates, all BET fare.

Rather, viewers find reruns of shows like Martin and Good Times, as well as programs like Baisden After Dark, a late-night talk-variety series featuring Michael Baisden, known as the Bad Boy of radio, and Turn Up the Heat with G. Garvin, a cooking show with the black celebrity chef.