English Entertainment
Viacom’s black cable network Bet turns 25
MUMBAI: What first began as the dream of African-American entrepreneur Robert Johnson has now reached a historic milestone.
Media conglomerate Viacom has announced that its cable network Black Entertainment Television (Bet) in the US is celebrating its 25th anniversary
In 1980 the technological “switch” was flipped to create Bet as the first channel of its kind in history. Bet’s first telecast was a black film presentation A Visit to a Chief’s Son. Since then, Bet has grown from a few hours of programming on weekends to a 24-hour channel.
It claims to reach more than 79 million homes in the US, Canada and the Caribbean. Its repertoire includes music, news, comedy, drama and public affairs broadcasts.
Bet president and COO Debra Lee said, “This will be a major celebration of our success with new original programming, vignettes, entertainment specials, contests and other surprises. Everything culminates this fall with a Bet 25th Anniversary televised special comparable in excitement and glamour to our popular Bet Awards show.”
BET has also rolled out a new logo and on-screen graphic as part of its 25th Anniversary celebrations. Incorporated into the new brand identity is the tagline It’s My Thing.
Bet states that its signature star logo has been refined to give it a more pronounced, contemporary look. The star has been shifted from the left to the right of the BET lettering to ensure that the primary focus is not on stars or celebrities, but rather the network’s most important asset — its viewers.
The identity makeover is being supported by a range of on-air and off-air creative tactics. These include new print collateral; business cards and corporate stationery; and various technical treatments to Bet’s televised programming, network identifications and logo animation.
English Entertainment
Ellison takes his Paramount-Warner Bros case straight to theater owners
The Skydance chief goes to CinemaCon with promises and a skeptical crowd waiting
CALIFORNIA: David Ellison strode into a room packed with thousands of cinema owners and executives at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday and did something rather bold: he looked them in the eye and asked them to trust him.
The chief executive of Paramount Skydance vowed that his company would release a minimum of 30 films a year if regulators greenlight its proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, a deal that has made theater owners deeply, and loudly, nervous.
“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison told the crowd. “Once we combine with Warner Bros, we are going to make a minimum of 30 films annually across both studios.”
It was a confident pitch. Whether it landed is another matter. Cinema operators have already called on regulators to block the deal, and scepticism in the room was hardly concealed.
Ellison pushed back by pointing to recent form. Paramount, born from the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media last August, plans to release 15 films this year, nearly double the eight it put out in 2025. Progress, he argued, was already underway.
He also threw theater owners a bone they have long been chasing: all films, he pledged, would run exclusively in cinemas for a minimum of 45 days, drawing applause from a crowd that has spent years fighting for exactly that commitment across the industry.
“People can speculate all they want,” Ellison said, “but I am standing here today telling you personally that you can count on our complete commitment. And we’ll show you we mean it.”
Fine words. The regulators, however, will have the last one.
