HRTS eNews - 10/30/2007  (Plain Text Version)

Q: Who are your main competitors and how is the BET brand different from them?
-We’ve got a lot of competitors. When BET sold to Viacom for 3 billion dollars that woke a lot of people up like ‘whoah, that’s not a niche, that’s a huge audience there’. A lot of other companies have been doing programming to target our audience. Our sister company VH1 has a lot of shows that target our audience, TBS has had great success with “House of Payne” and Tyler Perry. They’re our competitors but at the same time I’m glad they’re out there because they prove to everybody, to advertisers, that we have a viable audience and that audience is not just a Black audience. What separates us from those other networks is that we’re dedicated to Black programming 24/7. Other networks tend to have a Black strategy, a sunshine strategy which they don’t always pursue. I don’t quite understand this given how many mainstream Black stars there are but on the other hand their blindsightedness is a great opportunity for me. Our audience knows they can depend on BET to deliver. Eighty percent of our viewers turn on our channel first, they start with it when they first turn on their TV.

Q: Any thoughts on recent Congressional criticisms of BET?
-Black youth culture has always been controversial. When Louis Armstrong was in cathouses in New Orleans creating jazz a lot of people said ‘this is terrible, this is going to lead to the end of civilization’. Black youth culture is always seen as dangerous, as associated with criminal elements but what’s new? At the same time, we are broadcasters and we have a responsibility to make sure that we are doing good for our audience which is why we deal with controversial issues, we deal with them on our network. We had a show “Hip Hop versus America” and we brought everyone to the table, we had critics of hip hop, we had people who love hip hop but don’t like its current direction, we had people who are big supporters of hip hop and we had artists who are currently on the cutting edge of hip hop. We put them all on a panel and said “let’s talk about the issues, let’s talk about violence, let’s talk about misogyny, let’s talk about materialism, let’s talk about our image to white America”. It got huge, off-the-chart ratings because it was really important to our audience and it wasn’t the simplistic kind of wrestling match type of show with people yelling at each other that generated a lot of heat but no light. It wasn’t just for-or-against, it showed a continuum of thought, a lot of folks in the middle. We showed that hip hop isn’t polar, it’s an octagon and we showed all eight sides as only we could do because we have the kind of trust where everyone involved knew we would be fair, they knew we wouldn’t misrepresent them. A lot of people who criticize BET don’t watch BET. They may be upset with what BET was in the past but I can’t change the past and the fact is that a lot of the most offensive programming that was on BET has since been canceled. The people who watch BET love the changes but a lot of the critics have residual anger and I understand that but I think it speaks volumes about Debra Lee that she would bring someone like myself onboard to make changes. I encourage those who have been frustrated with BET in the past to check it out now.

Q: What effect would a writers’ strike have on BET?
-We are developing scripted programming so some of that might be affected in terms of our ability to launch it next year. We have our first animated series which is already in postproduction. We are pretty far down the line on our first live-action sitcom and those scripts may be finished before the strike occurs. There’s a great appetite in our audience for a move into scripted programming and so we are developing it. I hope that there’s a settlement, I can appreciate both sides since I’m a WGA member and am always in favor of artists getting what they deserve, and at the same time as a broadcaster I want to put stuff on TV. Strikes hurt everybody and so I’m hopeful that the two sides can come to place where everybody feels good.

Q: In what ways will BET grow in the coming years?
-More of everything, more primetime programming, we want to be more innovative in every daypart. We’re looking at creating a show for late night, a wider range of original shows for morning and afternoon, we’re going to be starting a theatrical feature film division soon, we’re moving into a lot of areas very fast. In terms of new media, BET.com is the #1 website for Black consumers and when I think of new programming I make sure it has an online component as well so we’ll continue to move aggressively in that area.

Q: Any thoughts on the HRTS during its 60th Anniversary year?
-I’m very proud to have become a member, it’s a great honor to be part of such an esteemed organization and I couldn’t be more pleased.