Nobody’s got your back like Black Entertainment Television Network (BET). This past spring, BET started the campaign ‘We Got You.’ In an interview, VickyFree, Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice-President of Marketing for BETNetwork stated, "We created this campaign to convey to our core audiences, the African American community and lovers of black culture, that we clearly understand their needs and are committed to creating niche, unique and engaging programming exclusively for them." BET has created these new shows to target their audience and to let them know that they’ve got their backs on the latest news, whether its politics, music, film, etc.
On January 25, 1980, America’s first African American billionaire, Robert L. Johnson founded Black Entertainment Television. Shows such as BET News, BET Tonight, BET’s MAAD Sports, Teen Summit, Rap City, Cita’s World, and Bobby Jones Gospel had been aired throughout the years. This was a network where the African American culture could enjoy music, movies, and news that appealed to them. After becoming the first black own company on the New York Stock Exchange in 1993, Johnson sold the network to Viacom network for $3.2 billion in the year 2000. Fives years later, Johnson retired and assigned Debra L. Lee as CEO of BET, who had been working the company for many years.
As a child, BET was one of my favorite channels to watch, along with cartoons. Even from back then, I would have to say that the content of the network has not been the same. They have taken away a lot of shows and added shows that has watered down the network and in the process, I believe they lost their vision. Prior to Johnson’s retirement is when I believe the network started to lose sight of why the network was created. When Debra Lee took over the position as CEO, it got no better for me and I’m not the only person who believes so. She tried to make things better, but that was not the case. I do applaud her effort to try and make the network better and maybe with this campaign she can do so.
With this new “We Got You,” campaign BET has launched, I hope that it returns to how things use to be, but more modernized. They have numerous of upcoming shows lined up and I’m setting high expectations for them, but then again I don’t want to be disappointed. After the show The Game had been taken off the air and BET was going to produce it, people thought this would be IT for BET, but IT just was not. The show was just not the same and The Game started to lose some of their audience. They also created shows like Let’s Stay Together and Reed Between the Lines and I did not care too much for them. They seemed very cheesy. This October, the show Don’t Sleep will premier, where host T.J. Holmes talks about subjects that affects the African American Culture. They have also modernized they original Showtime at the Apollo. I’m actually looking forward to these two upcoming shows. They have created original shows such as The Mathis Project, Second Generation Wayans, Luv, Asylum, and many more. I’m anxious to see how well this new campaign will succeed or fail and how the audience will respond to it this next year. Does BET really ‘Got Us’ like they say they really do?
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