We Don’t Run It Yet :|

Sey
Sep 21, 2023
2 min read

Earlier this year, there was a huge announcement regarding BET’s ownership. Now, everything is completely different. Keep reading to discover what #Moves BET is making.

There were serious rumors and several announcements regarding Tyler Perry owning BET, instead of maintaining a small stock. However, Paramount, partial owners of BET, have come out recanting their offer. The parent company, Viacom, had planned on selling the company to make some money and overall balance their books (Bhattacharya, Quartz).

They’re no longer selling the huge stake, because they feel it’ll no longer alleviate debt (Toonkel, WSJ). Potential buyers consisted of Tyler Perry, Kenya Barris + 50 Cent, and Diddy.

Viacom sales stunt — Courtesy of @RichardCameron via Twitter

There’s speculation that Viacom initially made the announcement or offer to draw in the attention of black consumers. It honestly kind of worked too. For a few weeks Tyler Perry’s ownership of BET and what that would mean for the platform was the buzz on social media. With the offer off the table, we can expect the content to remain the same.

Viacom has owned BET since 2000 after purchasing it from Robert L. Johnson (Hayden, The Hollywood Reporter). They began an extensive partnership with Tyler Perry dating all the way back to some of his first movies. Perry has multiple shows on the BET+ streaming platform that he helped launch in collaboration with BET. Shows like Sistas and All the Queen’s Men are the most popular.

What do y’all think? Did Viacom dodge a bullet avoiding selling another share of BET to Perry or did they make a mistake? Does this seem like a publicity stunt? Did they ever really have intentions of letting BET become Black owned? A lot of these questions are up in the air. One thing for certain, Viacom loses a lot of profit from the platform Paramount+, which is also in their possession (Toonkel, WSJ). In the meantime, I’m here for the BET Hip Hop and Soul Train awards. They’ve been really delivering for the anniversary of Hip Hop.