The new bet: with a new creative leader, 16 original shows and maybe a 'mess' or two, the maturing of the largest black cable network has not come without its issues

Ebony, Oct, 2007 by Eric Deggans

ABOUT BET

Launched: January 25, 1980, by Robert Johnson. Sold in 2001 to Viacom for $3.5 billion.

Reach: BET is on the cable lineup in nearly 85 million U.S. homes

Audience: Target demographic is Blacks and those interested in Black culture, 18-34

Revenues: Viacom won't release individual profits, but says BET is the most profitable division of the media giant.

EVEN FOR A BROTHER used to strolling in the winner's circle, Reginald Hudlin is on the cusp of an amazing year.

After more than two years as president of entertainment for Black Entertainment Television, he's developed a roster of hit shows for the cable channel, including American Gangster, Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is and Lil' Kim: Countdown to Lockdown. The executives he's assembled--some drawn from his days directing landmark, Black-focused films such as House Party and Boomerang--are a "dream team" of lieutenants that includes a Rhodes Scholar and a Harvard MBA.

By the season's end, the channel will have debuted a historic 16 new, original shows, including an animated sketch comedy series from Orlando Jones, a court show starring edgy comic Paul Mooney, an American Idol-style competition to find gospel's next singing star, and a town hall meeting on hip-hop and American society featuring Nelly, T.I., the Rev. Al Sharpton and Public Enemy's Chuck D. Oh, and there's the July birth of his second child, Alexander Augustus Hudlin. Kicking back in his small but sharply appointed office at BET's new West Coast headquarters in Los Angeles, Hudlin is a picture of energetic confidence. He's certain that his wave of new shows will further crase the notion that the channel is still mostly a home for music videos, standup comedy specials, infomercials and syndicated reruns.

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Then talk turns to Hot Ghetto Mess, the new show that sparked a national controversy threatening to overshadow all the programming achievements Hudlin had made. The program debuted amid protests on the Internet and Black radio, stoking advertiser concerns.

As much as he tried to shrug off the mediated protest--which eventually led BET to change the show's name to the less incendiary We Got to Do Better--Hudlin also seemed irritated that so much criticism seemed to come from people who don't watch the channel regularly and don't know what he's trying to achieve.

"Definitely, there's a portion of the [critics] who go: 'The whole thing went downhill when they got rid of [long-gone Video Soul host] Donnie Simpson,'" says Hudlin, laughing ruefully at the attitude he describes as "young fogey-ism."

"I knew when I took this job that we would be doing shows that arc controversial; you can't program for [a young] audience ... and not do that," he adds. "But Viacom gave us the resources to do the largest and most diverse aggregation of Black programming in the history of television. That's what's getting lost in this conversation. And it's a tragedy, because people are so busy expressing their frustration, which is 70 percent about what BET used to be."

STEREOTYPES OR JUST GOOD FUN?

That's not how Austin lawyer Gina McCauley saw it. McCauley stumbled on the Hot Ghetto Mess Web page weeks before BET would debut a show based on the site--which ridicules Black people reflecting the excesses of hip-hop culture in loud clothes, gaudy jewelry and too-revealing outfits.

Fearing BET's show would simply serve as a megaphone for the worst stereotypes about Black people, McCauley began a protest on her blog(whataboutourdaughters.blogspot.com), in the media and with BET's advertisers, convincing Home Depot and State Farm, Inc. to remove ads from the channel's Web site.

As radio shows, cable TV programs and newspapers debated the issue, McCauley stood fast on one issue: She didn't want to talk to Hudlin or anyone else at BET.

"To me, BET was irrelevant--I wanted to take the conversation to the [advertisers] who pay for the programs," says McCauley, who wrote on her blog that she had "moved on" from the controversy after the show's debut. "They have abused their unique place [and] ... caused so much ill will--I don't know if they can recover from the last 15 years."

In August, the National Association of Black Journalists gave BET its Thumbs Down award for failing to pre-empt its programming to air the 2006 funeral of civil fights icon Coretta Scott King live. And there seems to be no shortage of pundits willing to criticize the channel when a controversy emerges.

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This may be the central stumbling block for BET, a channel that targets young viewers aged 18 to 34, but also has near-complete brand name recognition among Black people and access to more than 84 million homes nationwide.

The controversy emerges because the very programming that attracts viewers from the hip-hop generation may discomfort those who expect more conventional fare from a channel they see as the premiere voice of Black America on television.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

"The problem we've always had is that people hold us to this higher standard ... [but] we don't get as much attention paid to the good shows we're doing," says BET Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Debra Lee, who has been at the network for more than two decades. "One of the things we realized early on is we can't be all things to all people ... We've been doing this for 27 years, and no one has found a way to do it better."