BET Founder Ashamed of Network…
May 5, 2010 by A. Gene'
Filed under Entertainment, News, and Media
Lawwwd… How can the original founder even say that BET is not the same…? She just don’t know how many doors she has open to let people continue to criticize BET. I mean I agree with her, but in my opinion you are the FOUNDER and the last hope BET has to change… Too bad she sold it to VIACOM in 2000…so technically she shouldn’t have sh*t to say in my opinion… #imjustsaying
Recently The Daily Beast had a little interview with Mrs. Sheila Johnson Co-Founder of BET, and she had some interesting things to say about the way BET is NOW… Peep it below…
“Don’t even get me started, I don’t watch it. I suggest to my kids [a 20-something daughter and a college-age son] that they don’t watch it… I’m ashamed of it, if you want to know the truth.
It wasn’t always that way. “When we started BET, it was going to be the Ebony magazine on television,” Johnson tells me. “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 all. And I remember during those days we would sit up and watch these videos and decide which ones were going on and which ones were not. We got a lot of backlash from recording artists…and we had to start showing them. I didn’t like the way women were being portrayed in these videos.
Johnson says she no longer has any connection with BET. “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,” she says. “I know they think that’s what’s going to keep programming on the air; that’s what’s going to sell advertising. But there has got 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, ‘I don’t have to protect myself anymore.’”
I agree with Sheila but to a certain extent…I remember those days with Teen Summit, and Rap City…Those were the days, but time changes and now people want to see music. Sheila didn’t have to sale the network but she did, and I’m guessing when VIACOM took over that is when BET started looking cheaper then usual??…However there is a better way of saying things besides “I’m ashamed of my old network”…
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