When Sheila Johnson and her husband founded BET, their vision for the channel was quite different from what it is today. “When we started BET, it was going to be the Ebony magazine on television,” she told the Daily Beast. “We had public affairs programming. We had news…I had a show called “Teen Summit.” We had a large variety of programming, but the problem is that then the video revolution started up…And then something started happening, and I didn’t like it at all. And I remember during those days we would sit up and watch these videos and decide which ones were going on [air] and which ones were not. We got a lot of backlash from recording artists…and we had to start showing [their videos]. I didn’t like the way women were being portrayed in these videos.”
Johnson and her husband sold BET to Viacom in 2000 for $1.3 billion–a hefty amount of money that made them the first African-American billionaire couple, even before Oprah hit that mark. But Johnson, who has no affiliation with BET anymore, said she sometimes wishes she could take it back. “I just really wish–and not just BET but a lot of television programming–that they would stop lowering the bar so far just so they can get eyeballs to the screen…there has to be some responsibility. Somebody has got to take this over. Because with all the studies that are out there, this is contributing to an atmosphere of free sex, [and the sentiment], ‘I don’t have to protect myself anymore.’
Johnson recently produced a documentary about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Washington D.C. called The Other City, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on Friday. “[HIV/AIDS] is a pandemic,” she said. “And now that the movie has come out we’re starting to hear from other cities that they’re having the same problems. Our goal is to take this movie across the country so that other cities start looking at themselves a little harder…Society and government really believe this problem has gone away. People don’t know that this disease is still around.”
my thing is if you want to control what people are viewing, why did u sell your tv station.. that dont make sense. i guess to get dat billi… lol, im wit it doe… real talk for real life situations
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Victim of the times, if she would have put her foot down, everybody would have changed the channel to whatever station was playing them videos, and BET would have went out of buisness……….
Thats how it is, whenever a station or channel Sets up standards, another entity willo emerge and the audience will switch to the station playing what they want
I agree with her views, to an extent, but censorship and setting standards is always a losing battle
THATS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN U SELL OUT TO THE DEVIL!!! DON’T COMPLAIN NOW. Dave Chapelle and the Wayans Family are classic cases. The Living Colour show went down the tube when it was taken over. And Dave Chappele bounced before they made a monkey outta him. No BET, just KOON TV. NOW YOU HAVE A BOAT LOAD OF SPONSORS, BUT SHALLOW CONTENT. One Dimensional, Main stream trash. To represent a dynamic culture you have to have a dynamic spread to represent it. Instead of a broad array of entertainment and information, You have programming that prepares you to be huslter, baller, rapper by day and by night then teaches you how to pray and scream to jesus once you go to jail…or get AIDS.
concur
Let me say this…….BET = BLACK EGO TOMATOES
No, it’s BET = Black Evil Television.
BLACK EGGS TOGOS???
fuck that bring the videos back
It’s been that way sicne they took rap city and the baement off the air…now it’s nothing but Black Embarassment Television…glad someone else brought up the fact that the only time you actually see black people on the channel is when they are cooning it up( especially 106th and park) or on some other kind of the same ol’ bullshit…misrepresenting us as a whole and propagating future generations of unintelligent,ignorant black children becauase they watch this garbage and think it’s cool…we all should be ashamd of what this once very positive force in our community has become…
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mess with BET for the most part, but it’s not due to that “that station is hurting our community'” bullshit. I just don’t like the shows that they air.
But people need to get out of here with this theory that BET was the beacon of black life. A lot of people conveniently forget that the few shows that were on that network were the show that we didn’t watch. Anybody here ever watched those Arabesque dramas with professional black characters and their love lives? I didn’t think so. Now how many used to watch Video Soul and Rap City?
BET at one point was 95% videos with news, ComicView, 227, and Roc reruns thrown in(and Teen Summit on the weekends). There was nothing profound about Video Vibrations, Jam Zone, Planet Groove, Rap City, and HitList all day and if you want to go back even further-Video Soul, Video Vibrations, Soft Notes, Video LP, Rap City, Midnight Love, and Ed Gordon. I loved the channel, but it wasn’t because I was uplifted. I wanted to see some videos.
I’m not saying that they couldn’t stand to have better programming(Lord knows they could), but I can’t get with that “BET was more than a network, it was a lifestyle and a pillar of black entertainment.” No it wasn’t, it was a dope-ass video channel that (thankfully) played lots of different music that wasn’t seen on other video stations. They did a lot for Black music in that respect, and that is very commendable. It was later diluted in the later years, but that was more the fault of the music industry and Stephen Hill with his MTV mentality.
I concur with Shone for the most part.
I think what gets people upset about BET is that they now realize what it could have been. It possibly could have become the singular black voice on TV. Now there’s no way it will be because it’s “owned” in the same way that the black hair industry is, black musicians are, and black professional athletes are.
It’s hard to offer up your perspective once you’ve sold it to the highest bidder. Her regrets are understandable – and I think it’s because she feels a little bit like a hypocrite now.
Just my two cents.
Sheila Johnson campaigned for and gave money to the racist republican governor of Virginia who doesnt recognize slavery as part of the Confederate history month. Sheila Johnson is a sellout for the highest bidder just like her ex husband Bob.
This is the smartest comment I have ever read on here.
It’s real easy to talk against something after it made you billions.
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stfu bitch you aint co found shit you was married to the nigga who founded bet. they was goin downhill before he sold the station anyway that why no one watches it anymore. that shit was wack after aj free n tigga left the basement.
People still watch BET?