Assertion Supported
Johnson: BET Capitalized on MTV Not Airing Black Music Videos
“And then when MTV refused to play, or started out not playing black music videos, and the black talent wanted to have their videos shown, and I went to them and say, hey, if you keep making the videos, I'll keep putting them on. And as a result of that, we gai…”
Disclosure
Bob Johnson: BET's pitch was adapted directly from an elderly channel proposal
“But I had his information, so when I started BET, I said, black people have certain spending patterns. Black people have certain shopping patterns. I just, wherever he had elderly, I just filled in black. And I just went in and took his model, and out of that …”
What-if
Johnson would have accepted 20 percent equity to secure Malone's capital
“What Malone didn't know at the time, if he had reversed the numbers and said, I'll be 80, and Bob, you'll be 20, I said, John, that's a deal.”
Insight
Johnson: BET Made Double Revenue on Zero-Cost Video Content
“All you got to do is come up with a business where you get free music videos, cable operators pay you, and advertisers pay you, so you get paid twice for nothing.”
Disclosure
Johnson pressured reluctant corporate advertisers by threatening to alert Jesse Jackson
“I'd say within about two inches of threatening them, you know, and that if you don't do this, I'm gonna tell Jesse Jackson that you're not advertising, stuff like that.”
Insight
Johnson: BET faced criticism because it was the only Black network
“When you start a business, it was the preconceived notion that your business existed to further the collective, the goal of African Americans, so if you were doing something that they felt didn't do it, say if you weren't doing black educational television, Yo…”
Assertion Supported
Former BET CEO Debra Lee was picketed at home over music videos
“In fact, the, my successor Deborah Lee, she was picketed for a period of almost four months outside of our house with people with bullhorns You know, taunting her because she was running BET that played music video.”
Insight
Bob Johnson: Technology and Content Diversity Inevitably Defeat Incumbent Regulation
“Technology is a hard thing to keep tied down, and as satellites launched, and you could beam signals across the entire country, and aggregate huge audiences via cable, over time, the argument for more content, free choice, more diversity of content, particular…”
What-if
Bob Johnson: CBS Could Have Launched 24-Hour Cable News Before CNN
“CBS with the Walter Cronkite, the brand as a father of news, could have launched on cable a CBS news network instead of letting Ted do it, but they saw themselves as a thirty-minute Six p.m. Period of news. They just didn't see news as a 24 hour audience produ…”
Assertion Supported
Malone Seeded BET With $180K Equity for 20% and $320K Loan
“And so Malone says to me, he said, Bob, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to buy 20% of your company for a 180, and I'm going to loan you a three 20. One 83 20, there's your 500,000 dollars. Now, under that business plan, Bob, you will be 80, and I'll be …”
Insight
Bob Johnson: Going public secures legitimacy in mainstream business culture
“If you're going to be a visible African American player in a predominant white culture, business culture, you had to do something to get identified, and nothing could identify you more than playing at the game You know, own a company, go public, be totally tra…”
Assertion Supported
Johnson bought BET back at $62 per share, selling at $126
“We ended up buying the company back at 62 bucks a share, and we kept it private, and then we sold it to Viacom for a hundred and, what's double 62? A 126 bucks a share.”
Assertion Partly supported
Johnson: Malone's $180K BET investment yielded $770M in Viacom stock
“His one 80 yielded him seven hundred and seventy million dollars of Viacom stock.”
Opinion
Johnson: BET is not worth a 20x multiple today
“I don't think BET is worth it 20 times multiple today, no.”
Insight
Bob Johnson: Satellite cable enabled national niche audience aggregation
“What I did was to take advantage of the technological change that was brought about by the launch of satellites to allow signals to be beamed across the United States, and instead of aggregating just Black households in Chicago, I could aggregate black cable h…”
Assertion Supported
Bob Johnson: BET was the first Black-owned company listed on NYSE
“No African American had done it before on the stock exchange.”
Assertion Supported
Pepsi and Anheuser-Busch backed BET early while P&G and Colgate hesitated
“Pepsi Cola was an early advertiser because they, the soft drink appeals to that market. Same way with Anheuser-Busch. They got exclusive rights to advertise their beer. But what you call the real revenue generators, the package good guys the Procter & Gamble, …”
Robert "Bob" Johnson