See WHAT Happened - BET is NOW Viacom's Rising Star and Debra Lee is feeling pretty good

"We had 10.65 million viewers tune in (live + same day), which makes the BET Awards the number one show on cable so far this year."

The June 30th broadcast of the BET Awards '09 was a record breaker for BET. Coming upon the heels of the death of Michael Jackson undoubtedly helped account for the high ratings the show received. Judging by blogs, vlogs, facebook comments and twitter tweets, the consecsus was that the show was awful. However the fact that so many of us tuned in to this train wreck, BET executives have interepreted your viewer support as an affirmation to continue to entertain you. They're saying "You like me, You really like me."

You, not me, have encouraged BET to go even further with developing new programming. You know you guys love Tanya and Toya. So expect more of the same. Although I did watch "Rising Icons" with Chrisette Michele, it was OK.

Now here's an idea, PLEASE DON'T WATCH the BET Awards 2010. You already know what it is. Well, if you really got to watch it, then just TIVO it, watch it later and zoom past the commercials and tell someone on twitter that's what you're going to do. No use letting the advertisers think that you'll actually sit there and watch their commercials.

There's one BET executive that's feeling pretty good about herself, BET President Debra Lee. In an interview with Broadcasting & Cable, Lee was asked a number of questions about BET. Here's one of the questions:

"BET's ratings were up 34% in the second quarter of '09. To what do you attribute that rise?

-We've made a lot of strategic moves that have contributed to our ratings growth. Loretha Jones joined us last year as the president of original programming, and Barbara Zaneri joined us as our head of programming, scheduling, strategy and acquisitions. Together they have made our programming and scheduling even smarter in a number of ways - from strengthening Tuesday nights, to moving our hit gospel competition series Sunday Best to Sundays, to using our returning franchises to help launch new shows, to programming our dayparts in better ways. There is more flow to the schedule, and we have made great acquisitions, including The Game. We have also acquired movies including Training Day and The Matrix; we're doing movies three times a week now.

Our ratings growth is a result of our original programming, and we have even more series in the pipeline. We have a nightly talk show with Mo'Nique, starting in October, called The Mo'Nique Show. We also recently added The Wendy Williams Show to our nightly line-up--it airs earlier in the day on Fox. We also have another new show about singer Monica that follows her comeback in the music world. Her show will be called Monica.

We are also partnering with NASCAR on Changing Lanes, which chronicles the search for the sport's next generation of drivers. We're looking at the changing face of NASCAR. It is something we are excited about."

LOL WHAT??? SMH (Shake my head) Debra, come 'on! You know it's shows like the upcoming "Frankie and Neffe." Admit it, what are you afraid of... Alright we get it, "original programming" is a code word for "Tanya and Toya", "College Hill" and the rest. I've never watched these shows but I know about them, great job of marketing BET (and from a sister who I get on for watching them). Read the rest of the interview here