Black Entertainment Television (BET) is a station owned by Viacom – one of the largest cable networks in Washington. It claims a viewership of over 90 million homes worldwide, making it the most watched station by young black Americans.
The network was launched in 1980 by Robert Johnson, initially showing re-runs of popular black sitcoms and rap music videos. Since then, the channel has extended to include a variety of news programs and specials.
There’s a lot of controversy over the way African Americans are being represented on the channel. This has led to any high profile protests such as ‘Enough is Enough’ in April 2008.