For years, I have watched BET deteriorate from a visionary, edu-tainment venture into (with a few notable exceptions which are NOT the norm) a miasma of lowest-common denominator programming which seemingly —insultingly, I thought— underestimated the very demographic it claimed to exalt.
Can this new venture rise above all that mess? If so, can it stay there without sinking to a dispiriting level we all know too well?
The startup has already acquired TV rights to nearly 400 movies, including The Wiz and Car Wash; several Spike Lee productions such as Jungle Fever, Mo’ Better Blues and Do the Right Thing; and films featuring Oscar winner Denzel Washington, such as The Hurricane, the Civil War epic Glory and Philadelphia.
They’ve also announced a multi-year rights agreement with Urban Sports Entertainment Group to televise football and basketball games from the country’s largest black athletic conference, plus some religious and educational programming. The Bounce network will be carried over standard digital over-the-air signals so that anyone with a modern TV can receive their programming for free.
Interestingly enough, Martin Luther King III and civil rights icon Andrew Young are listed as founders of the network.
I welcome your thoughts.
