Subject: | |
From: | |
Reply To: | |
Date: | Mon, 9 Dec 2002 17:12:52 EST |
Content-Type: | multipart/mixed |
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
FYI.....
Jeter
VIACOM CANCELS B.E.T. SHOWS: Ed Gordon, “Lead Story” and “Teen Summit” are
gone.
Mr. Bob Johnson
(Dec. 9, 2002) *On January 23, 2001, Bob Johnson sold BET, the company he
started in 1979, to Viacom for $3 billion. Johnson remained as chairman and
CEO of BET and Johnson's chief operating officer, Debra Lee, said about the
sale at the time: “BET will continue to be run by Bob Johnson and myself in
the way we have always run it for the past 20 years ... We will continue to
have an independent black voice.” Some are now questioning the nature of BET’
s voice. Viacom recently announced that it was canceling “BET Tonight with Ed
Gordon,” “Lead Story” and “Teen Summit.” “BET Tonight” and “Lead Story”
will be off the air by the end of the year and “Teen Summit” will air until
early 2003. “This was obviously not Bob Johnson's decision because these were
his favorite programs,” a BET executive told BlackPressUSA.com. “It was time
to pay the piper and Bobs no longer the piper,” another executive is quoted
as saying. These recent cancellations are the latest events in a major
restructuring of BET’s programming. Last year the company decided not to
renew Tavis Smiley’s contract. In January this year “Lead Story” host Cheryl
Martin voluntarily resigned. Then longtime “Lead Story” panelist DeWayne
Wickham, a USA Today columnist, resigned. Time will tell whether BET can
survive the loss of its news programs along with several well known
journalists. “What this means is that BET will have virtually no programming,”
said a former BET official. “We were already down to skin and bones and now
we don’t have that.”
-30-
|
|
|