For 25 years, BET has faced no rivals catering to African-Americans. Now there are new players in the field, and BET's parent is pushing for an upgrade
By Johnnie L. Roberts
Newsweek
Feb. 7 issue - TV has stretched the "makeover" genre of shows from humans to houses to entire towns. Now the Black Entertainment Television network is going a step further: making over itself. In January it unveiled a new tagline, "It's my thing," after jettisoning "Black star power." It refashioned its familiar star logo and installed a sleek new set for "106 & Park," the daily countdown music-video hit.
The countdown to the biggest change in BET's history is also underway. Next January, CEO Robert Johnson's contract expires with media giant Viacom, which made him the first African-American billionaire when it bought BET in 1999. In a NEWSWEEK interview, Johnson put to rest speculation that he might retain ties to the network he founded. "I don't plan to continue in my current capacity," he says he's told Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone. He has other projects in mind, including his NBA Charlotte Bobcats team. "I'm sure I have a second act in me.''
As BET begins a yearlong celebration of its silver anniversary, it also is searching for a second act. Until recently it had little reason to change much. It reaches almost 80 million homes and has minted profits from its low-budget lineup of music videos, stand-up comedy and other fare catering to an African-American audience—a niche it's had to itself for 25 years. Yet that lucrative strategy now looks vulnerable.
A new threat to BET is TV One, a fledgling network launched by Radio One, the successful radio chain founded by pioneering African-American broadcaster Cathy Hughes, along with cable giant Comcast. Two weeks ago TV One got a major boost when DirecTV, the U.S. satellite-TV arm of Rupert Murdoch's global media empire, agreed to carry the channel to most of its roughly 14 million customers in exchange for a stake. Atlanta-based Black Family Channel has also joined the fray.
Viacom is also taking a fresh look at BET, and is intent on developing it into a brand with as much stature as its other media properties, including MTV, VH1 and Comedy Central. Tom Freston, Viacom's co-president, told a recent gathering of investors that BET had "really only scratched the surface ... of what it can do."
He panned BET's overreliance on music videos and infomercials, which have made up as much as 70 percent of its schedule. He said the company was assembling a programming team to "transform the channel and truly make it a much stronger first choice for African-Americans."
Viacom's focus on BET inevitably raises the ticklish matter of diversity—or lack of it—in media ownership. It's not just Viacom's ownership of BET, or Comcast's and Murdoch's stakes in TV One. Time Warner recently acquired full ownership of the publisher of Essence, a magazine for black women.
Racial sensitivities dictated key terms of Viacom's buyout of BET, including granting Johnson full control for five years. A top Viacom adviser said that no one "wanted it to appear that we were going in and taking away their blackness." Says another official: "We were concerned that people who understood that market continue to have a lot to say."
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