Robert Johnson, founder of BET, explains how national satellite distribution made niche demographic programming economically viable compared to localized broadcast TV.
0:00 / 0:19exact quote · 19.5s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“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 households all across the continent of the United States.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading:
filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard
(the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Robert "Bob" Johnson
AssertionSupported
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…”
Robert "Bob" JohnsonDec 14, 2017▶ 23:36Live Episode! Black Entertainment Television: Robert Johnson
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 …”
Robert "Bob" JohnsonDec 14, 2017▶ 12:30Live Episode! Black Entertainment Television: Robert Johnson
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.”
Robert "Bob" JohnsonDec 14, 2017▶ 18:30Live Episode! Black Entertainment Television: Robert Johnson
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.”
Robert "Bob" JohnsonDec 14, 2017▶ 24:31Live Episode! Black Entertainment Television: Robert Johnson
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.”
Robert "Bob" JohnsonDec 14, 2017▶ 26:09Live Episode! Black Entertainment Television: Robert Johnson
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…”
Robert "Bob" JohnsonDec 14, 2017▶ 28:24Live Episode! Black Entertainment Television: Robert Johnson
Made with StarZero
Turn any episode into a week of clips.
This entire site, over 800 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable,
runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the
moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.
We use essential cookies to make the site work. With your permission we
also use analytics cookies (Google Analytics and Mixpanel) to understand
usage and improve StarZero. See our Cookie Policy.