At 27, BET Tries Some Original New Moves

Smith's production company is developing an animated sci-fi series called "Cipha," which BET describes as a show "set in a future world where hip-hop is outlawed." And Vin Diesel is behind yet another animated series, about the life and times of Hannibal, the ancient African warrior king.

But all that hasn't capped off the controversy that has bubbled around BET periodically since its founding. One of the network's summer series, originally called "Hot Ghetto Mess" and based on a Washington blogger's Web site showing African Americans engaged in embarrassing behavior, was the subject of protests on black-oriented radio stations and Web sites, as well as a petition drive to ban it from the air.

The outcry caused two advertisers to pull ads from portions of BET's Web site and led the network to change the program's name to "We Got to Do Better" just a few days before it aired. But Hudlin says audiences responded to the program; BET is considering renewing the show for a second season.

And the general tone of BET's everyday content has not satisfied people such as the Rev. Delman L. Coates, the pastor of a church in Clinton. Outraged by the airing of such videos as rapper Yung Joc's drug-themed "Coffeeshop" and by the foul language in an animated public-service message that BET ran over the summer, Coates started a campaign called Enough Is Enough that seeks to challenge media companies that "demean black humanity."

In recent weeks, Coates has written protest letters to the heads of BET, CBS Radio and Radio One Inc., the Lanham-based radio-station giant. But his group has saved its sharpest tactics for BET's Lee. Over the past two weekends, the group has organized bus caravans that have delivered hundreds of pickets to Lee's home in Northwest Washington.

Despite Lee's request to end the protests, Coates says the picketing will continue. "We're going to continue to let them know, and let the world know, that we won't accept this kind of offensive stereotyping in the popular culture," he says. "We have to be consistent in our outrage. If we're outraged with offensive speech from someone outside our community, we need to be just as outraged when it comes from within our community."

Says Lee, who met with Coates on Friday without resolution: "I think this is unfortunate. . . . I'm used to getting input from our audience but I've never seen anything like this. I'm disappointed that this is the tactic they've chosen. It sets a very bad precedent."

Give BET time, says Hudlin -- the evolution has begun.

"There are folks who want us to be PBS, NBC, Fox and MTV all rolled into one," he says. "I understand that years from now, when our programming is where I imagine it will be, that there will still be people frustrated with us. I accept that.

"We can't please everyone. But in the meantime, I would have something here for everyone, no matter who you are."