BET As You Remember

The moment I stopped watching BET was when they fired Donnie Simpson and Tavis Smiley. And then got rid of their nightly news or anything having to do with news. It was out with the old VJ and in with the new. But the new ones were hopeless and so was BET. It began to skewer younger and younger. I often wondered if black people watched the network. But there BET awards show is interesting because it represents all that BET used to be. A smart mix of old school and new beats. But get a load of these names that showed up at the '07 show: Diana Ross, Eddie Levert, Bootsy Collins, Public Enemy, Gladys Knight, Patti Labelle and Jennifer Holliday. None of these will ever show up on BET again. I'm 99% sure. But they all outclassed the newer class. Like MTV, BET used to be required viewing for a certain populace. But while VH1 and VH1 Classic took up MTV's older demo, BET has no such outlet other than BET Jazz. A channel that represents the community? African-Americans are still wating for one.