MISCmedia for 12/14/00
Soul Food to Go

BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION was seldom among the proudest examples of African American cultural achievement.

Its schedule relied heavily on music-video blocks, including a lot of the gun-totin' and woman-dissin' gangsta minstrels manufactured by L.A. promoters for mall-rat consumption. Its original shows were heavy on the kind of self-deprecating comedy acts that Spike Lee savages in his new movie Bamboozled. And it ran as much as 12 hours a day of infomercials.

But black audiences were often willing to give the channel at least a little grudging respect, because it was "their own." It was officially owned by a black entrepreneur, Robert Johnson. (Even though its financing and ultimate control came from TCI's Liberty Media subsidiary.)

But AT&T, which now controls Liberty, has been involved in some major corporate reorganizing; while Johnson's tried to start a new commuter airline.

So BET will soon disappear as a nominally independent entity, to become just another of Viacom's many cable properties.

Some commentators have mourned that the only black-owned national TV channel's going to be just another piece of a media conglomerate.

What they're not fully considering is that a Viacom-owned BET just might be a more effective voice for black America. Not just with more and costlier original shows, but with a more respectful atittude toward its core audience.

Viacom's MTV and UPN channels have certainly traded in the kind of jive talk and booty shakes vilified by BET's critics. But its Showtime pay-TV channel has commissioned perhaps the most respectful black-middle-class show since Cosby, Soul Food (and its Hispanic counterpart, Resurrection Boulevard).

These shows, along with HBO's The Corner, expand the notion of "TV Worth Paying For." Those with just plain old broadcast reception get Af-Am role models limited to over-the-top sitcom mugging and Oprah. Those with basic cable can also see Li'l Kim's cleavage, Wyclef's loverboy posturing, and CNN's Bernard Shaw.

But for the adventures of more-or-less ordinary black families with more-or-less ordinary relationship and career problems, ya gotta pay extra.

Maybe, just maybe, that'll change.

TOMORROW: Bjork's dander in the dark.

REMEMBER: It's time to compile the highly awaited MISCmedia In/Out List for 2001. Make your nominations to clark@speakeasy.org or on our handy MISCtalk discussion boards.

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