HRTS eNews - 09/24/2007 (Plain Text Version)
In this issue:
News & Announcements
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Network Chiefs to launch 2007-08 Season
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HRTS Announces New Officers
Features
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Television’s Turning Point
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From The Executive Director
Member News
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Profile: Henry Schleiff
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Profile: Rob Golenberg
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Corporate Member: Hollywood Reporter
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Corporate Member: BET Networks
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Welcome new HRTS Members
Jr. HRTS
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News, Announcements from JHRTS
About The HRTS
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Officers, Board of Directors, Staff
Corporate Member: BET Networks
Latest Cable Net to join HRTS Corporate Member ranks...
The HRTS is proud to welcome BET Networks as an HRTS Corporate Member. Leading BET Networks in their Corporate Membership is Reginald Hudlin, President of Entertainment for the net. Additional Executive members will be named shortly.
Reginald Hudlin has been President of Entertainment, BET Networks since June 2005. He serves as chief programming executive in charge of BET's music, entertainment, specials, sports, news and public affairs, film and program acquisitions, home entertainment and programming development units.
At the helm of the pre-eminent entertainment brand serving African Americans and consumers of Black culture, Hudlin has produced the highest ratings the network has ever seen with the four highest-rated series in BET history: “Lil’ Kim: Countdown to Lockdown,” “College Hill 4,” “American Gangster,” and Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is.” Additionally, the “’06 BET Awards” set a major milestone for the network, and is now the #1 cable telecast of all time among African-Americans and the #1 awards show in all of cable for 2006. Hudlin is currently overseeing the roll-out of 16 new original shows over the course of 2007 – which is BET’s most ambitious programming slate in its history.
Hudlin also spearheaded “Saving Ourselves: The BET Relief Telethon,” which raised more than $13 million for the aid and relief to millions of Hurricane Katrina victims. He initiated the turnaround of the BET News department with the launch of “Meet the Faith,” as well as high-rated news specials, such as “Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams,” Coretta Scott King,” the definitive special on the life of “Richard Pryor,” “The Down Low Exposed,” which probed the secret world of men having sex with men while posing as heterosexuals.
Hudlin is regarded as one of the pioneers of the modern Black film movement, starting in 1990 as the writer and director of the influential comedy House Party He followed that with 1992’s Boomerang, which starred Eddie Murphy, Halle Berry, Martin Lawrence and Chris Rock. That same year, he wrote and co-produced Bebe’s Kids, the first Black animated feature film. Hudlin also directed The Great White Hype with Samuel L. Jackson, Jeff Goldblum and Jamie Foxx, The Ladies Man with Tim Meadows and Will Ferrell, and Serving Sara with Matthew Perry, Elizabeth Hurley and Cedric "The Entertainer."
Prior to joining BET's executive ranks, Hudlin directed the pilot episode of Chris Rock's sitcom “Everybody Hates Chris” for UPN. He also serves as Executive Producer of “The Boondocks” on Cartoon Network. His prior work in television comedy includes “Cosmic Slop,” an award-winning science fiction anthology for HBO. Hudlin also won a BET Comedy Award in 2004 and 2005 for his directing and producing work on Fox Network's “The Bernie Mac Show.”
In addition to his work on the network, Hudlin’s passion for comic books – he has more than 50,000 in his private collection – led him to write the re-launch of the world's first Black superhero The Black Panther for Marvel Comics, which led to Hudlin writing Spider-Man for Marvel as well. Hudlin is also the co-writer of Birth of a Nation, a comic novel about Hudlin's hometown of East St. Louis, Illinois.
Hudlin, a Harvard University graduate, lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter, but divides his time among BET programming and production hubs in New York, Los Angeles and the company headquarters in Washington, D.C.