Black Cable Entertainment Television is on upswing

LOS ANGELES -- This is shaping up as a very good year for BET.

Just three months into 2003 -- after a major programming overhaul -- Black Entertainment Television has seen double-digit increases in advertising and subscribers, now at 74 million households. And BET attained its highest ever prime-time ratings in January.

Then there's BET's gospel music programming, which eclipses even the popular "BET Nightly News With Jacque Reid." The gospel slate, which occupies most of the network's Sunday schedule, complements BET's weekday countdown show, "106 & Park," which routinely gets better ratings than MTV counterpart "Total Request Live," and is the network's most watched program.

"It's been terrific for us," Debra Lee, president of the 23-year-old cable channel said in a phone interview from her Washington, D.C., office. "It shows us that our viewers are happy with what we're doing in the changes that we're making in programming."

But not everyone is happy.

A small yet vocal group of high-profile blacks -- including filmmaker Spike Lee and cartoonist Aaron McGruder, who recurrently jabs BET in his comic strip "Boondocks" -- says BET is selling out.

They accuse BET, which media conglomerate Viacom bought for $3 billion in 2000, of promoting ghetto-centric stereotypes by running low-cost, lowbrow comedies and hip-hop music videos.

Among its new programs are reruns of shows from other Viacom properties: UPN's "The Parkers" and "Girlfriends," and Showtime's "Soul Food."

"One channel can't give everybody everything," says Mara Akil, the creator and executive producer of "Girlfriends." "BET is trying to expand its programming and this is an opportunity to counter-program what the networks aren't doing."

So how do UPN and Showtime benefit?

"We're hoping that people who have gotten enthusiastic about the show on BET will sign up" for Showtime, the premium channel's president, Jerry Offsay, said of "Soul Food." "We're hoping that the exposure on BET is going to drive our ratings higher."

The black family drama is returning to Showtime Wednesday.

Which means little for BET unless it gets a hit show of its own.

"They need a 'South Park' or a 'Sopranos' -- a show that draws viewers like 'The Shield' did for FX," said R. Thomas Umstead, programming editor of Multichannel News, an industry trade magazine. "They have to find a show that defines the network, and they have yet to get one over the last 23 years of their existence. Viacom (which also owns Paramount, CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon and VH1) can be very helpful in this regard, but it hasn't shown that yet."

And that's what concerns critics such as Robin R. Means Coleman, author of "Say It Loud! African-American Audiences, Media and Identity."

"Viacom is investing absolutely no money in (original) programming," said Coleman. "It's like me borrowing sugar from my neighbor. It's free. Then what happens across UPN, BET, CBS and Showtime is this homogenization. ... So there is no diversity in the ideas or the images that they're disseminating about African-American culture."

Coleman added that BET seems bound "not by its duty to fulfill the public interest, but its duty to fulfill profits, and that seems to be its primary interest."

BET has been widely criticized for canceling three highly regarded public affairs shows -- "Lead Story," "Teen Summit" and "BET Tonight With Ed Gordon" -- in an effort to cut costs and make room for more entertainment programming.

Such criticism irks Lee.

"It's just people criticizing something that they don't understand and it's really irritating," she said. "We've done (public affairs) shows for years and no one watched these shows, and now we cancel them and people are like, 'Oh my God, they're deserting news,' instead of pointing to the good fact that we have one of the best news shows on TV."

Lee also defended her newly acquired sitcoms as "the highest-rated shows in black households -- high-rated, quality shows that happen to be produced by our sister network. ... That's why we did the Viacom deal in the first place, so we wouldn't be a stand-alone organization."

Besides, at more than $1 million per episode, original programming is a substantial -- and risky -- investment. So Lee says she'll continue to shop around for cheaper acquired series and original reality shows.

"Until our advertising rates reach what ABC, NBC and CBS receive, it's going to take us awhile to get there," she said.

That's not to say BET hasn't developed some scripted shows of its own -- well, kind of. The March 4 premiere of the animated adult series "Hey Monie" was the third-highest debut of the season for BET, which is teaming with Oxygen cable channel to co-produce and finance the daily gal pal show.

"This is a big investment on their part and our part," said Geraldine Laybourne, chairwoman of Oxygen, which will run "Hey Monie" as a weekday series in July.

Meanwhile, others are vying to give BET a run for its audience.

Major Broadcasting Co., best known for airing the football and basketball games of black colleges, has announced plans for a 24-hour news channel aimed at black viewers. Comcast, the nation's largest cable television company, and black-oriented Radio One together are developing a channel that will feature mostly black-oriented entertainment.

"It's not something I'm going to spend a lot of time worrying about," said Lee, "especially when I haven't seen a programming proposal that looks any different from what BET is."

BET viewer Ken Morris cautiously shares Lee's optimism about the network's new direction.

"At first I was a little upset when Viacom bought them," said the 34-year-old loan processor as he strolled through a Los Angeles shopping mall. "They were a black-owned company and all of a sudden you had this big conglomerate sucking them up."

Then he thought about it more and concluded: "They have a lot more money and maybe they'll pump some more money and get better programming for the network. ... I'm hopeful."