BET might have gone on the air over twenty years ago, but it has no fewer critics today than it did when it first started. Indeed, throughout its lifetime, BET has been criticized from people all across the spectrum. From white conservatives to black liberals, BET had its enemies from all walks of life. But throughout it all, Johnson remained focused on his number one goal: to make his business profitable. Other than that, there was no criticism that could distract or deter him.
There were those who said the station’s programming was lowbrow and not intellectual enough. There were those who said it was not cultural enough – that BET was neither black nor entertainment. Then, there were those who said it actually did more harm to the African American family than good, with all of its music videos featuring little more than expensive cars and flashy clothing, not to mention having no shortage of cleavage.
When Johnson sold BET to Viacom, many observers also called him a sellout. Tavis Smiley, a BET talk show host who continually drew in some of the station’s lowest ratings, was fired soon after the sale. Critics blamed the move on the new “white owners” at Viacom and dismissed Johnson as “a front man.” He was even called “the 2001 version of the dude who drove Ms. Daisy around.”
Johnson, however, has always called this kind of criticism unwarranted. With a 1.6 percent stake in Viacom, he has become the second largest individual shareholder in the company. “I make too much money to be a front man,” he retorts.
To the charges that he is harming the African American movement, Johnson says he has done more good than harm, but that it is not his job anyway. He is an entrepreneur, first and foremost, and his mission is to make money. “We are the only black network in town, so everybody has poured their burdens and obligations on BET,” he says, “but we can’t solve everybody’s desires for BET. We have to be focused on running this as a profit maximization business.”
Johnson has never fallen victim to his critics. Indeed, in response he has pushed even harder to prove that his goal is to create a profitable business, not represent a race. “I never really embraced the notion that BET was an heirloom that belonged to the greater black society,” he says. “BET was a business that had a great impact on African American society, but it didn’t belong to it. And so, my thing is that we want to contribute, we want to add value. But we have to operate according to the philosophy that you have to exist in a world where business decisions have to be made based on business, not on political notions or social agendas.”
The more Johnson’s critics told him to pause and put more thought into his programming, the more Johnson sped up and sought to conquer the industry. He did not let them slow him down. Instead, he turned up the volume and tuned them out.
Lesson #5: Turn Up the Volume to Tune out the Critics
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