Black Entertainment TV Celebrates 25 Years Of Service.

What first began as the dream of African-American entrepreneur Robert Johnson has now reached an historic milestone. BET is celebrating its 25th anniversary as television’s leading network targeting African Americans. It was 25 years ago this week – on January 25, 1980 – that the technological “switch” was flipped to create BET as the first channel of its kind in history.

On that visionary night, BET’s first telecast was a Black film presentation entitled “A Visit to a Chief’s Son.” Since then, BET has grown from a few hours of programming on weekends to a 24-hour urban entertainment phenomenon reaching more than 79 million homes in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean with music, news, comedy, drama, public affairs, movies, sports and concert specials.

For now, BET has chosen to quietly celebrate the achievement internally with cake and champagne toasts among executives and employees. There was also a video message of celebration to employees from Founder and CEO Johnson along with Debra Lee, BET President and Chief Operating Officer. Viewers, however, will have their own chance to join in the party later this year.

“This will be a major celebration of our success with new original programming, vignettes, entertainment specials, contests and other surprises,” said Lee. “Everything culminates this fall with a BET 25th Anniversary televised special comparable in excitement and glamour to our popular BET Awards show.”