It looks as though Black Entertainment Television is about to dial back the booty-and-rerun quotient.

The network's parent company, entertainment giant Viacom Inc., will increase BET's budget for original programming by 30 percent to 50 percent this year compared with last, and will continue to grow it at that pace in coming years, Viacom Chief Executive Philippe P. Dauman said during a meeting yesterday with Washington Post reporters and editors.


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It's about time that they are coming up to speed! I was wondering if the light bulb was going to ever come on. It doesn't make any sense as to why a once black-owned television network never put together any original television programming of its own, in addition to the music video shows that they have. Do they not understand how they could be a top ten network if they developed comedy and drama TV shows that starred African-Americans? Now it's like they pretty much HAVE to step their game up because they aren't the only African-American based network on TV anymore. Think about TV-One. They have a lot of drama shows and they play a lot of old, but good movies as well as comedies from back in the day. Plus, it is a black-owned station that has developed new shows, so I'm pretty sure BET is feeling the pressure. I'm glad BET is trying to take a step in the right direction, but they still have a long way to go.