BET is placing its annual Soul Practice Awards and Hip Hop Awards on pause.
The BET Hip Hop and Soul Practice Awards shall be reimagined to spice up viewership
With the way in which wherein folks eat media now firmly rooted in social media and streaming platforms, the cable community has determined to rethink the way it delivers the celebrations.
BET CEO Scott Mills informed Billboard: “Now we have suspended the Soul Practice and Hip-Hop award exhibits.”
He defined: “I might say that it’s much less about them being now not and extra about our group having to reimagine them for this altering media panorama that we discover ourselves in.
“I believe what we’re going to see are extra folks taking franchises and saying, ‘This might need began on linear tv, however now I’m going to maneuver it to a different house. Do I transfer it to streaming? Or do I transfer it to a different platform?’”
The choice comes amid broader shifts in how audiences interact with leisure. Conventional cable viewership continues to say no, and networks are more and more pivoting towards digital-first methods. Mills acknowledged that scores for the exhibits had dipped however emphasised that the standard of the productions remained excessive.
“Viewership was down. Nevertheless, the cable ecosystem is smaller immediately than it was a 12 months in the past. That’s simply the truth of it.
“It was a rare present. And truthfully, I attribute the viewership declines much less to the declines within the cable ecosystem and extra to the truth that we moved the night time of the present.”
The Soul Practice Awards and Hip Hop Awards – which have fun excellence in Black tradition – will goal to discover a solution to proceed interesting to youthful generations.
Mills insisted: “We’re not strolling away from these manufacturers.
“We’re simply stepping again to ensure they evolve in a manner that displays how folks stay and join immediately.”
The flagship BET Awards are nonetheless very a lot going forward in 2026.
This 12 months’s version noticed Kendrick Lamar, SZA and Doechii come away with prizes.
