The only thing BET had going for it back in the day were a few talk and news
shows. There was the news show BET tonight (with, at various times, Ed Gordon
and Tavis Smiley). There was a talk show with the great Bev Smith--who,
curiously, was the *only* dark-skinned person hosting a major show in BET for
quite a long time. Bev is good, no nonsense, and well informed, and her show
reflected her abilities. There was a good show aimed at teens that aired on
Saturdays (I think it was called Teen Beat). Before the gangtsa rap thing
really hit, it had a feeling that now I guess we'd call "innocent", dealing
with real issues like divorce, drugs, school quality, along with having guests
who'd come in and talk to the kids. There was music, videos, and dancing, but
like I said, it didn't have the harder, more carnal edge that even shows aimed
at young adults can have nowadays. Finally, there was a good news talk show
hosted by Ed Gordon that had a panel including George Curry and Clarence Page.
Good, informed discussions. I forget the name of the show. But curiously, BET
chose to air both it and Bev Smith's show on Sundays before noon--when most
black folk were at church or brunch!
There was even an enjoyable entertainment themed show where Tanya Hart
interviewed various celebrity guests. Last I saw, I think Ms. Hart does some
kind of gossip stuff, as I see her show up on TMZ-like shows dishing on who's
sleeping with whom in Hollywood.
But yeah, back then BET had enough shows like the above so that I watched it a
least a few hours a week.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Baxter" <truthseeker...@lycos.com>
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 2, 2009 5:41:35 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: [RE][scifinoir2] The CW: Ain't No Beautiful Black People
Personally, Michelle, I never got deep enough into BET to judge
programming or camera angles or any such. Their systematic mistreatment of
women was, to me, nauseating.
---------[ Received Mail Content ]----------
Subject : Re: [RE][scifinoir2] The CW: Ain't No Beautiful Black People
Date : Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:58:06 -0000
>From : "Michelle Lauren" <miche...@michellelaurenbooks.com>
To : scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
I haven't watched BET except in passing for years. It always seemed to me as if
the company that owned BET, Viacom (which also owns MTV) wasn't putting as much
effort into the look and quality of BET as they were putting into MTV's
programming.
In recent years, I've felt as if BET was just airing bad remakes of shows
premiered on MTV. For instance, Baldwin Hills on BET was aired after MTV's the
Hills, but B.H. felt like something the network just threw together. I also
have a problem with a lot of the camera quality on BET as opposed to stations
such as MTV and NBC, where the viewing quality is clear instead of grainy as it
often is on BET.
The CW just plain irritates me. When they were the WB and UPN as separate
entities, both stations tended to randomly cancel good shows (such as Angel the
Series, from Joss Whedon). And their limited programming that showed actors and
actresses of color was also irritating to me.
Michelle Lauren
STARSTRUCK: HUNTER sci-fi-romance)available from Liquid Silver Books!
http://www.michellelaurenbooks.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/michellelaurenbooks/join
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQdwk8Yntds
