I remember when Robert “Bob”Johnson, a former lobbyist for the cable industry,  launched BET back in 1980 (I may be telling my age but it’s all good) as a direct response to MTV which, at the time, would not play music videos made by people of color (Michael Jackson was the first to break that barrier).  BET was not only a vehicle to garner exposure for black artists who would not have gotten any television airplay otherwise, BET also aired very rich documentaries that chronicled various aspects of the “black experience”.  I can also recall when BET was the only station that aired classic movies with all black casts such as “Cabin in the Sky” , “Stormy Weather” and “Hallelujah”.   At the time it was the best, and only, station that seemed to cater to and understand the importance of African American representation in the media that went beyond gang bangers, drug dealers and crackheads, until late one night…. in the middle of the night, a dark cloud loomed over the founding principles of BET…. and took BET by storm… that storm was called BET “Uncut”………

“Uncut”, was the airing of soft porn music videos that were only played late at night, a stark contrast to the programming that BET offered during the day but low and behold, it took off like a shot. The time slot that had traditionally been the lowest rated time slot on BET, then started to compete with programming that was offered during the day.   The rest is history……… and brain rotting programming.

In 2012, the president of BET, Debra Lee attempted to explain why BET continues to offer substandard programming on it’s network and the long story short was, the ratings supported the programming.  In that interview, Lee stated ”Over the 28 years I’ve been at BET, we’ve tried different shows, series and nightly news, and it’s always a matter of what are people going to show up to watch. We started a new show last week called Don’t Sleep! With T.J. Holmes, which is supposed to address these kinds of issues. It’s designed to be a mix of entertainment and news and commentary. We hoped it would have been a Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert-type show.”  (Source) .  The show tanked……..

Here’s the way I see it, the BET demographic is black males (this is beginning to change slightly with the onslaught of “reality” programming), ages 18-34 who would rather view the garbage  that is on BET now, than most types of quality programming that BET has tried in the past, but why?  One might argue that since BET is no longer independent and is owned by Viacom  that there is some mind control method in play to keep blacks ignorant, in the dark, out of the loop and brain dead and unenlightened.  It may be further argued that the programming is some method of indoctrination that is being used to “train” black folks as to what our priorities should be and instruct us on the behaviors that we should have to ensure that we remain second class citizens…….. ya’ll can have that argument.

BET is a business and business are not in business to go broke.  I think that the larger issue is that our community has lost sight of what is important.  We have allowed ourselves to become a community of people who value the new Jordans over education (when was the last time you saw a line a block long to get into school?), fast money, faster women and absentee parents.  BET is making money exploiting our community dysfunctions hand over fist.  We can blame whomever for the origins of our community decline but we have to take responsibility for the fact that we’re still there.   Unless we begin to crave a different fare by not supporting what BET is feeding us, then they will continue to serve up the same intellectually unfulfilling garbage they are feeding us now.