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BET and the Po Black Man

The media is all around, influencing most thoughts and buying habits. Most of the media bases its shows towards many diverse demographics as to bring in the most viewers to watch commercials between the show content. But some of the channels are demographic specific, advertising directly to a single group in hopes of banking the entire future of a network on that single group. One channel has been extremely successful in this risky business venture, BET.

BET stands for “Black Entertainment Television” and also markets all shows directly to the black audience, especially their main target, the black male middle-middle class to the low-middle class. A majority of all commercials are made up of an all black cast. Many of these commercials follow the same exact script as others with an all white or mixed cast. Companies are doing a very smart thing in doing this duel advertising for all other networks and channels and BET. Historically and culturally, the majority of blacks support black businesses. The slight perception that a company is black friendly will earn that company several millions of dollars more in profits.

Denny’s long had the national perception to blacks across the nation as being racist when it came to being seated, the time to get an order placed after being seated, and the time to get the order after it was placed. Several civil rights leaders urged all blacks to boycott Denny’s. After Denny’s claimed that it was never and had never practiced racist tactics, Denny’s produced a new commercial, one that featured an all black cast and it was run on BET in 1997. There have been only two discrimination cases since 2000. BET had probably played a large part of dissuading the racist views that were perceived during the time before the commercial had aired.

“Comic View” is a nightly stand-up comedy show that features black comics. Sometimes there is another minority on stage (Asian, Hispanic) but the majority of the time there are black comics on stage. Some of those comics’ main material is about their families, usually because most blacks like to talk about their families, such as how this son did this and how their niece did that. Cultural traits is something that BET does extremely well in using to its advantage when it creates its program lineup.

Most of the midday programming is music videos, grouped in shows featuring a particular genre of music such as “Black Power”, “Rap City: The Bassment”, and “106^th and Park”, BET’s version of MTV’s popular “Total Request Live”. On all of those shows, the music and the music videos are geared straight towards young black people 13-25. The music videos really are the main attraction with a party atmosphere in nearly every video and young, physically attractive women in bikini tops and men in wife-beaters or no shirt on at all. The performers are usually with a large group of people dancing with them. These large groups represent the groups of people that the typical black person hangs out with in social situations; groups of sometimes more than five, but not necessarily as boisterous as the groups depicted on television. BET does its marketing effectively: when they go after one specific demographic base, they do it aggressively. But does it really depict how the typical middle class black male lives?

In the main staple of the programming schedule of BET, music videos, the performers are seen with extravagant surroundings with large amounts of jewelry on their person and also in their mouth (called a grill). There are very expensive cars such as Hummers, Jaguars, PT Cruisers, Mercedes. shown, as well as expensive cell phones and old “throwback” athletic jerseys. Normally these are things that the normal black person that BET specifically targets cannot afford, especially the cars. It would be most discouraging to see some status symbol of high living almost all day every weekday knowing that it would be very hard work for a person in that demographic to achieve such a goal. BET could do a very good job of this if the performers didn’t look as though they live and dress in a fashion similar to the target audience instead of a higher demographic. These people are virtually stuck in a never-ending cycle of trying to achieve a thing which they cannot.

Moving forward in life is something that is rarely even seen on BET. A show on BET that was fairly recently on its programming schedule was the comedy “Sparks”, a show about a father and sons lawyer team whose firm also had a female associate. Even though it was a comedy show, there was very little if any “real lawyering” on that show, mostly it was one of the sons trying to scheme himself into a better position or going through exaggerated means of putting a case together. If this was the best method of portraying a black in a professional setting, it didn’t do a very good job of it. A young black man seeing that could get the impression that if acting like they do on “Sparks” is professional, then moving forward and being professional isn’t worth it.

An excellent show of a black person in a high professional setting is the network television show, “ER” with Dr. Benton portrayed by Eriq La Salle. Here was a successful doctor in the first few seasons portrayed on one of the top rated shows in network television history that a young black person in a low income household could look up to. But the chances of that are extremely low.

Because BET puts on comedy shows and other dramatic material that would intrigue a young black person, the chances are high that that person wouldn’t be able to see “ER” because the person would have their attention on BET instead of the network. For all the talking that civil rights leaders do about there not being any strong black men for young people to look to as role models, they do have a point. There aren’t many outlets for middle class black men to watch a professional living and working. And even then, when a show with a strong young professional black man like “ER” has been on long enough it could go into syndication, the chances of it seeing BET are not very high. The number of regular black cast members is low, only two of ten current cast members are black men and three of 17 total. Dr. Benton may have been a very successful black man, but he was the only black man that was a regular character for the episodes eligible for syndication and BET is for black entertainment. Having only one black person on the show would go against the main thing that BET promotes. Even if BET didn’t use a show like “ER” they should produce in-house a show that has a major black cast that will show what young black men and women can do in a professional setting.

BET does what media companies want to do and make money, but it fails to deliver in something that culturally the blacks hold very close and that is to help each other in their struggles in life. By being a major media company BET can very easily accomplish such a thing. When the network first started that was something that probably happened with regularity. Now with the dollar ruling all, they lost that vision. Only time will tell if BET will return to its roots.