BET Holdings, Inc.

BET Holdings, Inc., broadcasting and publishing company that primarily markets to African Americans. BET Holdings owns BET (Black Entertainment Television) Cable Network, a cable-television network that airs music videos as well as original and syndicated programming 24 hours a day. BET Holdings is based in Washington, D.C.

The company was founded in 1979 by Robert Johnson. A graduate of Princeton University, Johnson worked as a lobbyist for the National Cable Television Association before forming BET. With start-up money provided by Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI), Johnson launched the black-oriented cable-television service as a weekly music-video program in January 1980. Subsequent investors included Taft Broadcasting and Home Box Office. By 1985 the service was broadcasting 24 hours a day, and two years later the company made its first profits. By then the network offered a blend of entertainment, news, music videos, jazz, gospel music, and sports.

In 1991 Johnson took BET Holdings public, selling 21 percent of the company for $72 million. BET Holdings became the first black-controlled company on the New York Stock Exchange.

Johnson launched a series of ventures to take the company into new entertainment arenas. In 1991 the company expanded into magazine publishing with the acquisition of Emerge, an upscale general-interest magazine for African Americans. Another magazine, Young Sisters and Brothers (YSB), was launched that same year. The company formed a subsidiary, United Image Entertainment, to produce black-oriented movies. In 1993 BET launched a direct-marketing firm called BET Direct, an offshoot of its home-shopping television program, BET Shop.

The company launched a second cable-television channel, BET on Jazz: The Cable Jazz Channel, in January 1996. The jazz music channel featured videos, concerts, and interviews. Also in January 1996 BET obtained and aired the first interview with O. J. Simpson since his acquittal on murder charges three months earlier. The broadcast, seen in about three million homes, was the most-watched show in the network’s history.

In February 1996 the company announced an alliance with software giant Microsoft Corporation to produce a range of multimedia entertainment offerings, including a site on the World Wide Web, interactive television, and original CD-ROM titles. Later that year BET announced a joint venture with Encore Media Corporation to create BET Movies, a cable movie channel featuring black-oriented films.