(360)_Editors_Blog

I don’t hate on BET because they’re (theoretically*) a competing music video channel. I hate on BET because of what they define as “black” entertainment. We’ve all seen the videos they play, and it’s the same thing over and over again. Half naked chicks, throwing money in the air cause, I dunno, it’s cool to throw your money in the air— the big parties, flashy cars, et cetera, et cetera. And these are the things that are supposed to represent black people.

There are a lot of good rap and hip hop videos out there. But many of them don’t get played, and the only reason I can come up with is because they don’t meet the lude and vulgar prerequisites. It’s bigger than the fact that people are missing out on good music, it’s about the fact that people are being served a menu of stale, mind-numbing clichés, and few people know that there’s better out there.

There’s an episode of the Adult Swim program The Boondocks that deals with this matter. The story is about BET being out to destroy black people. Of course in reality they aren’t. But if you look at BET and what they stand for, their content, their message, it’s hard to ignore what effect it’s having on society, blacks and whites alike. There are a lot of stereotypes about black people and BET just nurtures that.

Cartoon Network won’t air it. Rumor has it that BET threatened to sue. Cartoon Network denies it. Sony is silent. But I can’t see any other reason they wouldn’t air it, especially with the other things they’ve aired.

If you haven’t seen it, watch it. It’s 2008. You can figure out away to watch it, if you try hard enough.

*MTV and BET dosen’t play enough music for me to consider them compition.

I put this blog up for a reason. That reason was to keep people informed with what’s going on, and I haven’t been doing that. So here’s what’s been going on;

I’ve been working on getting my programming on in other markets. Right now I’m trying to get things in order with Comcast and Time Warner about Chicago and Milwaukee (respectively), and I’m considering either doing just Des Moines or Mediacoms entire Iowa region. But all that will have to wait untill I get things up and running in at least Chicago.

I’m also trying to get things worked out with Universal Music Group. Since they want such a ginormous gob of money, I have to find the funds for that. Since this is a low-budget opperation, if I did decide to pay their tiny ransom, it would be about a 50% increase to my monthly expenses while broadcasting in Chicago, and a 4000% increase to the current budget (which isn’t big, obviously). So when people ask me to play a video, there’s a 50/50 chance I don’t have it or can’t get it because it belongs to Universal.

When everything is said and done, I’ll be looking at being on the air 6 hours Sunday nights, and probably five or six on Friday and Saturday nights. But I have a lot of things to sort out before hand. I’ll keep you updated.