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[MUSIC] Hi. >> Thank you for coming. It's a.
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>> It's a real honor to have you here. >> Great. Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. >> And I'm.
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>> I've been trying to get to Stanford for a long time so [LAUGH] >> [INAUDIBLE] We've been waiting.
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And congratulations too, on the Grammy salute to music icons award. >> Thank you.
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Mary J Blige performed a tribute song for you. >> Yes. >> What was that like? >> My God. It was so amazing.
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I've known Mary for a long time, and she's one of the people I asked to pay tribute to me, and she's just such an emotional person and she's so transparent.
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So, she started out by talking about the fact she's going through a divorce right now.
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Which you know, opened everyone's heart and then she talked about what she thought of me.
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Which was very emotional.
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And yeah, it was really great, she's an amazing person. Yeah.
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>> So, she did no more drama if any of you all know that.
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[LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> By the end of the song, she was on the floor.
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So, [LAUGH] it was really quite something.
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So, there are so many parts of my position that are wonderful, and one of them is getting to know several celebrities in a very personal way.
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And every now and then, I just have to pinch myself because I think of the little girl who grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina.
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And I had a little turntable in my bedroom that only played 45s.
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If any of you all remember 45s.
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A lot of heads are nodding.
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They had the little spindle in the middle.
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And I grew up on The Supremes and The Temptations.
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And they showed me what was possible, the style and grace of The Supremes and how talented they were and that they could go to the Copa Cabana, or go to London and perform for the queen.
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So, I remember that little girl and the fact that now in my Role at BET networks, I get to pay tribute to people like that, you know I know Smokey Robinson personally I mean it just >> [LAUGH] >> It just [LAUGH] even saying that gives me chills, so I'm still that fan little girl, but I also lucky enough to have a company where we pay tribute to.
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African Americans, not only who can sing and dance, and are in the arts, but also Dr.
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Keith Black who was a brain surgeon, or Judith Jamison who ran Alvin Ailey, or Dr.
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Ruth Simmons who used to be the president of Brown University, where I went, went to college, so I'm very fortunate to be in this position.
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>> Yeah, given all those relationships, being interviewed by me must be quite the comedown.
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[LAUGH] >> Not at all, I'm thrilled to be here with you [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> And yet, I'm sure you've done your homework much more than those people.
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[LAUGH] >> Well, we'll find out. >> Right.
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>> That award was recognition of your work. >> Yes.
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>> And contribution to the music industry, your leadership in the media industry.
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That's where you are now. >> Right.
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>> But if we start by going back to your childhood, and you talked about it briefly in North Carolina.
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How did that influence you growing up in the 60's?
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In the south and how did that affect the field that you chose to pursue?
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>> Well, that's a good question.
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I grew up mostly in North Carolina, my dad was in the army as I was born in South Carolina, when I was six months old we moved to Germany then to DC then to. Compton, California.
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So, it ended up in North Carolina.
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So, I think about that a lot.
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And it had a big impact on my growing up and my leadership ability.
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The Greensboro was very segregated when I moved there.
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I went to all black Junior high school, and I went to an all black high school, and you may remember there were sit ins at the Woolworth's in Greensboro, that was after I moved there.
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But the town was still, I mean that was before I moved there, I'm sorry, but the town was still very segregated.
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We had a street down the middle of the city called Market Street and black people lived on one side of Market Street and white people lived on the other side.
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But, that's sounds horrible, but we never felt like we lack for anything.
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We have black doctors and black lawyers. There's a black pink.
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And we could shop on market street.
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So, we felt like we had our own community and one thing it showed me that you could be anything you wanted to be.
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We had teachers who cared about us who really pushed us who made sure that we had the basic skills that we needed.
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And they told us every day you can be anything you want to be.
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The second part of it was the first day I was in sixth grade in Greensboro, they elected me president of the class.
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And it was because I was that weird girl from LA [LAUGH] just moved to town.
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And I was very shy child, but after they elected me President of the class I had to kind of step up and show some leadership ability.
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And I think that was just the start of Developing a sense of self-confidence and a sense of caring about my neighborhood.
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And about where I came from.
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And about the people that I lived with and my family.
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And having that sense of self and that self confidence, and those leadership abilities and the basic skills that our teachers made sure we had, I was able to go from an all black public high school to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
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And that was an amazing Step for me, but I felt very confident in doing that.
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And to answer your question specifically, I think growing up in that environment, loving brands that represented the black community, like Mo Town, and Ebony, and.
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Allowed me to be excited about the opportunity of working at a company like BET.
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When I joined BET 30 years ago, it was still black owned.
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It would have been started by Bob Johnson who is our founder.
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And I was at a point, I'm skipping over a lot here so I apologize.
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There is law school and a law firm and clerkship in between [CROSSTALK] Yeah.
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[LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> But to skip ahead to BET, when I made the decision to become general counsel at BET, it was so exciting.
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because I could see the promise of this company, and the fact that it provided black entertainment.
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And the fact that we still didn't see enough images of ourselves. On TV.
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I mean I grew up in the three network days, where it was just ABC, I know you're all going to really laugh, because this is so unbelievable to anyone who's under probably 50.
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That there were three networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
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I mean, I remember when Fox started and everyone was like, that fourth network will never make it. Right?
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>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] Why would we ever need a fourth network?
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But so the images of African Americans on TV just didn't exist, we would really call each other when the Supremes were on Ed Sullivan, or when a black person was, when Julia had her, Dianne Carrol had her first show on network TV.
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There are a lot of heads nodding, so you all remember.
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So that was big news, so to be able to work at BET, a network that for 24 hours a day focused on African Americans was really very exciting for me.
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So now, as I think about it in retrospect, I see there's a direct relationship between how I grew up and why I'm so passionate about BET and what we do, and why I've been able to stay at this company 30 years, and I started as general counsel and worked my way over to the business side.
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But it's been a labor of love and such a passion of mine and I still get really excited about what we do from day to day.
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>> And focusing in on that first transition as you said you were at Brown University then Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Law school, working in DC as an attorney for five years.
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You were every parent's dream child.
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>> [LAUGH] I wouldn't go that far, but okay.
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>> [LAUGH] >> My parents' dream child. >> Yeah, okay.
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>> [LAUGH] >> That's for me to work out.
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>> [LAUGH] That's hilarious.
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>> You then made the transition to joining a young startup called BET. >> Yes.
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>> A lot of us here are at a similar stage in life.
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Particularly our joint degree law school- >> Right. >> Classmates like Cara. >> Right.
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>> I just got an evil look. >> Yes.
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[LAUGH] Who happens to be my cousin.
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I've known her for a long time [LAUGH]. >> Absolutely.
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How did you think about that decision?
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>> Well it was a tough decision.
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I'll back up a little bit.
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I never really wanted to go to law school.
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I was one of those people who went to law school, because I had no other talents [LAUGH].
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It's either I go to law school or I go to- >> You just got an evil look.
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>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] Well it's true I was either, when I went to Brown at freshman week it was clear, you either went to law school or you went to medical school if you wanted to be a success.
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Even business school wasn't that popular at the time.
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They existed but it wasn't, you know as popular as law school or medical school.
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So I wasn't good at sciences, so I was like okay it will be law school, but I was that student who went to law school in order to use law for something else.
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I never really wanted to practice law, and then when I landed at Harvard Law School, and I just have to divert for just a minute, because I really have been trying to Stanford for a long time, [LAUGH] and Standford was the only school that I applied, to Stanford Law.
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The only other school I would have gone to, other than Harvard, and I didn't really want to go to Harvard, because I had already been in New England for four years at Brown, but Stanford put me on the waitlist.
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So if you know anyone- >> [LAUGHS].
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>> [LAUGH] In the admission's office at the Law School at Stanford that's why I didn't come here and I was [LAUGH], I really would have, I would have declined Harvard in a minute and come to Stanford, but Stanford put me in the waitlist.
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I was on my way to Brown, I mean sorry on my way to Harvard driving up with a friend who was going there too, and I got the notification that Stanford had accepted me, and it was too late, I'd already paid my room deposit and I remember how disappointed I was.
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But anyway, that's just a side story so [LAUGH]- >> We can bring that up [CROSSTALK] >> And I may have been a happier person if I had gone to Stanford, I don't know.
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>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] Obviously some people think I would have.
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>> [LAUGH] >> So, I went to Harvard.
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You know, again, against my wishes, but it was the best law school I got into, and so, I went- >> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] And I didn't mention, but I had boyfriend at UCLA.
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That was part of that California attraction, too.
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>> [LAUGH] >> Yeah, here we go.
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>> I'm sorry, it was part of it, yeah.
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>> It's now becoming clear.
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>> But anyway, and when I get to Harvard, I really realized I hated law school.
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I mean there's nothing about it I liked.
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They didn't support students who are interested in public policy, which is what I was interested in.
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The school didn't support women.
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The school didn't support African Americans or minorities.
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This was in the late 70s, and Harvard was still very black letter law, by the book.
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If a court didn't decide it, we're not going to talk about it.
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We don't care whether it's good law or bad law.
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So that, to me, was very difficult.
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So that's when I applied to the Kennedy School.
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I was like, okay, this is my way out.
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I'll go to Kennedy School, I can talk about public policy all day long.
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So I got the joint degree, I got a masters in public policy.
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So my plan was to go to Washington, and go into, become assistant secretary of something.
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I just wanted to make policy and help my community.
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I originally wanted to go to law school because of Thurgood Marshall and the people who have changed laws to help society, but by the time I got to law school, those days were kind of over, and it was all about corporate law and black letter laws.
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So, I thought the Kennedy school was going to give me that out, but then I got to Washington and Ronald Reagan won, and I didn't want to go into a Reagan Administration, so that's the long story of how I got to BET.
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But, what was the question again?
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[LAUGH] I'm sorry, I got so involved.
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>> I think the answer was more interesting than the question.
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>> [LAUGH] >> It was looking at that transition, so making the jump from working as an attorney into this new start up.
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>> Right, so I ended up, yeah, I have to finish the life story.
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So I ended up going to a law firm to hide out til the democrats came back. >> Right.
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>> [LAUGH] >> So, but it took 12 years for the democrats to come back, and so after five years at a law firm, I had to make a decision, do I really want to buckle down and kill myself for two years to become partner, which is something I never really wanted to do anyway, or is it time to leave?
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So I decided it was time to leave.
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So I started interviewing around, and by that time I was doing mostly communications.
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FCC regulatory work, so I decided I wanted to go in-house with a communications company.
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So I interviewed mostly in New York, and I wasn't sure I wanted to live in New York and luckily BET was a small client, and the founder asked me to come and start the legal department.
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So, I went from a 200 person law firm called Steptoe & Johnson, where I was one of 200 lawyers, to a 80 person company where I was the only lawyer.
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So that was a big transition, and I remembered telling my father, back to your point about being the ideal child, up to then, I kind of was.
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I went to Harvard Law School, they were all very proud.
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I went to this big corporate law firm.
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That someone like my father didn't even know existed.
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He's so come and visit me and he was full of pride because we had chandeliers and antique furniture and it's a corporate law firm.
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But for someone like him, I thought he spent his life in the military.
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He didn't know places like this existed, so he just knew I had good pension benefits.
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[LAUGH] It's going all work out for his daughter, so then one day I say by the way I'm leaving this really nice law firm.
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And I'm going to a company called Black Entertainment Television which you have never heard of before in life.
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Because at the time BET, we didn't have cable in DC, I actually worked on the cable franchise.
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So no one in DC knew, no one in most of the major cities, because major cities were just starting to get cable, had ever heard of BET.
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So my father looked at me, and he said, why would you leave [LAUGH] this very comfortable 200 person law firm [LAUGH] and go to company that no one has ever heard of?
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And I said, well that I'm not just having fun anymore.
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And I said, I just think work should be fun.
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And he said, well if this will suppose to be fun, they wouldn't call it work.
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>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> And certainly not the law firm.
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>> Right, right, and this is a man who had spent 24 years in the army.
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I'm sure he never had fun one day of his working career.
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But he was, making a life for his family and security and everything else.
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So my father was a Major in the army, so it's really hard disagreeing with him.
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You took your life in your hand if you disagree with him.
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So, which is why I didn't tell them I have applied to Harvard Law School, because I didn't want him make me go there.
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So I made a decision on my own, I remember the day I told him I was going to Harvard, he's like, well you didn't even applied there.
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And I said, well I just didn't told you that I apply.
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>> [LAUGH] >> So I came to the right decision on my own.
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But anyway, so he was a little disappointed in me for a minute, but then once I got to BET and he started sending me, he would clip out articles.
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It was before your time, before the email and internet and Twitter.
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If you got a newspaper article that you liked, you would clip it out and send it in the mail to someone [LAUGH].
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That's how we shared things, and so my dad.
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>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] It sounds so archaic.
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>> You tell them in your Twitter board meeting about that.
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>> [LAUGH] Yeah right, that's how we shared.
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So my father lived in Baltimore when I lived in DC, and he would cut out articles, and put them in an envelope, and mail them to me.
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And he started seeing articles about BET, and he passed away in 1998, but before he passed away, I had become COO, and he became proud of me again.
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So that was great, I was happy, but you know his first reaction was why would you do this?
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And to be honest, it was a first time in my career I felt like I was stepping off of the fast track.
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And doing something that I wanted to do because I wanted to do it as opposed to continuing to build my resume.
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I clerked because the clerkship fell in my lap, I didn't really want to clerk.
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But at the last minute a judge I had worked for at Harvard knew someone in DC who needed a clerk, so I got the clerk.
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Clerkships I did that, and it looked good on my resume and I went to the law firm and because I was waiting for the Democrats to come back.
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And I knew it would look good on my resume, so when I went to BET, it was the first time I said, this is something I really want to do.
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It's not something I'm doing just to build my resume.
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And you'll find, those of you who are starting your careers.
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You'll find that at a certain point in your life, you get to that point where it's like, this is what I want to do.
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I have enough qualifications, I've done all the right things, and now it's time to really devote myself to what I want to do.
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For some people it comes early in your career, I was lucky it came relatively early in my career.
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For some people, they don't come, so later on.
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Some people not until they retire and they made enough money, and can really do what they want.
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But the job at BET was the first job I accepted that I was excited about, that I really wanted to do, and I didn't think about what was going to be the next step.
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I could see myself being at the company for a long time, and it's been 30 years so it's kind of worked out.
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>> And coming back to something that you said, you alluded to the importance of media in educating viewers about the groups of people.
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People with different religions, different sexualities, essentially and by inference BET are all on behalf of the Black community.
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How do you think about conscious programming particularly given that BET has received some criticisms for re enforcing negative stereotypes?
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>> Well, we haven't received that criticism in a long time and I'm happy to say.
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Early on, BET received quite a bit of criticism because we were primarily a music video channel.
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And when we started, music videos were Lionel Richie, and Aretha Franklin, and Earth, Wind and Fire.
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Then all of the sudden something called hip hop came along, and the nature of music videos changed.
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And, people, artists were criticized for lyrics that were misogynistic and hateful in some way.
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And at that point, 60% of our programming was music videos.
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So when I took over as CEO about 11 years ago, I made a promise to do more original programming.
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And that was about the time other cable networks were getting into more original programming.
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And we actually, my leadership team and I, kind of sat down for 18 months and said, what do we want to stand for? What does BET mean?
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We can no longer say that we're the only black network that we were staring to have competitors.
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But we had to come up with our brand promise and our set of values.
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And the three pillars of our value promise was to respect, reflect and elevate our audience.
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And if programming didn't meet at least two of those three pillars, then we shouldn't do it.
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So that's when we really started getting into more original programming, like The Game, and Being Mary Jane, and The Quad.
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And we didn't want to label programming as positive or negative because that would be misleading.
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But what we said is we wanted to have realistic images.
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And if someone in a series has a drug problem, let's try to find a resolution for them.
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Let's not sugar coat it and pretend like it don't exist.
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Let's show a resolution, let's have a storyline that really inspires people and motivates them.
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So I think our audience's view as to who we are has really changed, especially in the past five or six years, and I'm really proud of that.
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When we did this brand analysis, I hired the guy named Stan Slap.
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>> Who I met at Microsoft.
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Microsoft has a CEO conference every year and Stan did a seminar on brands, and he was a consultant for Microsoft, and did a lot of brand work for them, and I went to his seminar, and I was so impressed with him.
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I said, please come help us.
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And so I hired him and he actually did This program which as I said, took 18 months.
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And as he described it, we started in hell.
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And hopefully, we ended up in heaven [LAUGH] by the end of the 18 months and you'll be happy to know.
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In heaven, there's lots of chocolate and [LAUGH] it's a really nice conference room, but hell was hard to take.
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And hell consisted of interviewing our employees, interviewing our viewers.
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Talking to our cable operators, our advertisers and really getting their viewpoint of what we were doing and where we were and the first problem we found is our employees were not proud with what we were doing.
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They were getting criticism from their families and friends as why does BET show these music videos, and why don't you do more about this?
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And at particular time, I had protesters outside my house in Washington.
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This minister and only Maryland decided, he didn't like hip hop music and he decided the way to change it was to buses congregation to my house every Saturday afternoon and they had bull horns and we are not bitches. We are not whores.
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It was not the kind of thing you want in your neighborhood on Saturday afternoon when you're usually trying to take a nap.
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And so that got us a lot of attention and I always said, why didn't he go to Jay-Z's house or Ludacris's house or Kanye's house?
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[LAUGH] But I guess they live too far away.
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>> [LAUGH] >> So, he decided that my house was a nice place to come.
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So that was in the midst of what we were going through and it took a lot to get us to heaven, and heaven was really a place where we could see the kind of original programming we wanted to.
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He took all constraints off of our resources, of course, that doesn't exist in the day to day world.
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But we could say, okay, what could we do if we had unlimited resources?
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And I remember him saying that Apple was a brand that we should try to emulate.
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Because if Apple was ever attacked in the media or in the news, the users of Apple products would come to their defense quicker than anyone else.
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Apple never had to defend itself.
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It always the people who had Apple products and this was years ago.
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So it wasn't everyone at that point, [LAUGH] but people who used iPhones or iPads were such true believers in Apple that they would get together and defend Apple and I say that to say we just had a recent incident with a show we have called The Quad and The Quad is about a HBCU campus and it's a scripted show.
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It's fiction and it's about a female president of a university, and she's a little messy.
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She has some issues in her life, if any of you have watched it and the band leader is not a great person.
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There are good people and bad people like are in any drama, but we were one of the HBCU presidents wrote a letter.
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And said, he didn't approve of it, of the show and he thought we were giving off negative images of HBCUs and I talked to him and assured him that, that wasn't what was going on, that it was just where it was located and that we all were supportive of HBCUs.
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But anyway, long story short.
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The great thing was that our viewers came to our support and said, look, this is a fiction.
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We all realize it's fiction. It's a great show.
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It's dealing with important issues like drugs on campus and sexual harassment and abuse on campus and we're looking for resolution on the show, but the part that really resonated with me and made me feel good.
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I called my head of marketing and PR and I said, think we've gotten to heaven.
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I think [LAUGH] for the first time, we don't have to defend ourselves.
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People are coming to our defense and our viewers are coming to our defense, and I think that was recognition by our audience that we have been doing good work.
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Everything from the Love and Happiness concert we did for president and Mrs.
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Obama or news specials we do, or the scripted shows we do, or.
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So it took a while and it took a lot of work, and a lot of new shows, and you can really tell people what you're going to do.
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You have to show them, but I think we're at the point now where our audience really supports us and believes us in what we're trying to do and gives us a little bit of leeway.
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I never said, we wanted to be the black PBS.
29:27
That's not what we're trying to be.
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We want to be a network and treat it like ABC who does Scandal, but no one says, they're ruining the reputation of the White House.
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People realize it's a show, it's fiction.
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How to get away with murder.
29:42
No one says, they're ruining the reputation of law professors.
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[LAUGH] I mean, because Viola Davis is more than a little messy.
29:51
>> [LAUGH] >> So all I wanted was for us to be treated like that, that no one's going to like every show you put on.
30:00
No one's going to like every character you put on, but treat us like a network that has good shows and bad shows.
30:07
And if we put on a bad show and no one watches it, we take it off like any other network.
30:13
We get a daily report card called ratings, that's telling us what people like and what they don't like and it's not a science in terms of creating programming.
30:26
Things that you think are going to work, don't work and that's just part of the process.
30:31
So I think we've come a long way in showing our audience who we are and what we believe in, and increasing our audience.
30:41
I mean, I don't know how many of you saw when we did this mini series not too long ago on new edition and we got 29 million viewers.
30:47
So that wasn't all black viewers, that was a mix of viewers.
30:51
That were viewers who watched the show three or four times, because it was a high quality show.
30:58
So, I think we're at a very different place than we were 10 or 15 years ago. >> I understand.
31:06
Looking now at one of things at the view from the top, we focus on is the idea of leadership.
31:13
If I have a spectrum on one end, it's a more introverted, more reserved than the other more extroverted, more outgoing.
31:22
Where would you place your self on that spectrum?
31:26
>> That's a great question and that's something that I've come to understand more the longer I've been a leader, and the longer I've been CEO, and COO before then.
31:37
I would say, I have moved along the continuum and maybe I'm over the halfway mark and more Toward an extrovert leader.
31:51
I'm an introvert as a person, and I had to come and I had to learn that about myself.
31:58
I didn't really know that when I started in a leadership position.
32:04
When I went from general counsel to COO, that was a really hard transition for me, as a person.
32:12
Because as a lawyer you can stay in a room and research and write and do all the things you have to do alone for a long time.
32:22
And now probably the only time you have to talk to people is when you have to deal with other lawyers or have to present to the client, so in a way it's a kind of introverted profession, it can be.
32:35
And so, when I became COO and had to really be a leader and I had my own management team, it took me a while to adjust and to be comfortable in that role, even sitting at the head of the table was a transition.
32:54
I just wasn't used to it, I was used to being that person behind the scenes who worked until three o'clock in the morning if I had to, and find the right answer.
33:04
But I wasn't used to sitting at the table making decisions quickly and sharing a vision.
33:12
And even going from COO to CEO was different because when you're COO no one asks you what your vision is, because as COO you're supposed to carry out the vision of the CEO, so I've had different transition points.
33:28
So going from general accounts or the COO, I had to learn to be more of the leader, I had to learn to make decisions.
33:35
I had to learn how to manage, and that's not something they teach you at law school.
33:40
I hope they teach it at business school [LAUGH], but I didn't go to business, so I don't know.
33:46
But, so I had to do it on the job, and I didn't have the luxury of being able to research for two weeks and get back to executives who wanted to answer on the spot.
34:00
And the executives that were part of my first team were my peers before I became COO, except a couple of them weren't really that invested in my success, I think that's the nice way to put it.
34:12
>> [LAUGH] >> And so, it took me a while to make the tough decisions that some of them would have to leave and some of them made that decision on their own, but that was a hard time.
34:22
I mean it really took me, to be honest, about six years to get my own team in place, and that's way too long, that it should've happened much quicker, but they were my peers, the founder was still at the company.
34:37
So, even though, I was running the company, I had someone who could veto me, and someone that they could go around me to get to, to get the decision if they wanted, if they didn't like my decision.
34:51
So, then when I became CEO I had to start thinking about the vision thing, because then all of a sudden people are like, what is your vision?
34:57
It's like, I don't know, I've been COO for ten years, I've never had to have a vision before, I jus did what the CEO want it.
35:05
So that took me a while to really focus on that, I wanted to do original programming, I wanted to have a new brand and have something that was really had the values that I believed in personally.
35:19
And that was tough because all of a sudden I really didn't have anyone to talk to.
35:24
When you're COO you can always, you do all the work and you get all the blame [LAUGH], it's something doesn't go bad, cowrite, but you have someone to bounce ideas off of.
35:36
So, when Bob Johnson left as CEO, I remember the first decision I had to make was the decision whether to carry Rosa Parks' memorial service on BET.
35:52
And we had not had a habit of doing funerals or memorial service.
35:57
I think Rosa Parks was the first civil rights leader that had died, where it was really, since I was at the network, that was really a big thing.
36:08
But I knew that funerals in the black community could last many hours.
36:15
[LAUGH] And then there was no definite into it.
36:20
I knew that it wasn't going to be a ratings driver, there were going to be some people that watched it but people weren't going to flop to it.
36:30
But I also knew as one of the few, I think at this time we had some competition, as one of the few black networks, if we didn't cover it we were going to be subject to a lot of criticism.
36:41
because people would say, how could you not cover Rosa Parks' funeral? It's Rosa Parks.
36:46
So,I remember trying to make that decision, and I remember I was in the back of a car going to the airport.
36:52
And I was like, well, Deborah, what do you think?
36:55
[LAUGH] Well, I don't know Deborah, what do you think?
36:57
I mean, it was the first time that I literally had no one to talk to.
37:04
And I remember just that odd feeling that, okay, now I'm CEO, the buck really stops with me.
37:11
I have no one else to blame, no one else to say, well, he vetoed me, or it was really his decision that I really had to stand up for the decisions I made, and be the leader of the company.
37:25
And the leader of BET, because of who we are as a network, is much more than just leading the company.
37:33
It's also being a leader in the community.
37:38
And taking positions on policy issues, having relationships with the administration, making decisions on how we cover administrations and not.
37:51
But to answer the question, in case you're wondering, I decided not to carry the funeral.
37:56
We did get some criticism for it. Now, we have BET. com.
38:02
So when there are funerals, like when Maya Angelou died, we cover it on BET. com.
38:09
And we also have another network called Centric, and sometimes we cover it there.
38:14
But we try not to devote three or four hours on the main network to a funeral that people are probably not going to watch.
38:22
But people do say, well, CNN covered it, why didn't BET?
38:26
Well, we're not a 24-hour news network. >> Yep.
38:29
So it's fine to make decisions like that, but it's also a lot of responsibility.
38:36
And back to your question about what people think of the network.
38:40
I remember once as we tried to deal with this issue of videos, the good news is we don't have any videos on air anymore mainly because you get them online, so that took the issue away, but when we had a couple
38:54
of video shows still on the air and we were getting all this criticism, I had a standards committee of executives who would look at the videos, send the videos back to the label if they had issues, ask them to edit it, and it was a give and take process. And then, if they couldn't come to a decision, they would bring video to me.
39:12
And then, if they couldn't come to a decision, they would bring video to me.
39:16
So, if the video got to me it was a bad video. >> Yes.
39:19
>> [LAUGH] But probably by big celebrity.
39:23
Of course, the First Amendment comes into it, the question of, do you want to silence some voices, and not other voices, and where do you draw the line?
39:32
And I had all those thoughts when I was trying to decide our position on videos, and language and visuals, and so that's the way that I relate it back to it, because I think it's very similar.
39:50
Those of you who are in law school.
39:53
You do have First Amendment rights.
39:55
But you can't yell fire in a theatre. That's a safety issue.
40:00
And that's a Freedom of speech argument in its purest sense.
40:07
But when you're talking about a platform, I think you can draw the lines.
40:13
At a certain point, you still have to service your audience.
40:17
And you want people to feel like you respect both views, or all views.
40:23
But on the other hand, I think there's a line you can draw when you just said, not on my platform.
40:30
>> And now, speaking [INAUDIBLE] audience.
40:32
Final question from me before we move to a Q&A.
40:35
It's the big question, Debra. >> Okay, the big one.
40:38
>> Yeah, it's the big one.
40:40
Talk us through President Obama's farewell party. >> Mm.
40:44
>> [LAUGH] >> What was it like?
40:47
What would we be most surprised to find out about? >> Wow.
40:51
>> [LAUGH] >> Let me think. That's a great question.
40:56
Well first of all, it was the most amazing experience of my career and my life.
41:04
To be able to go into the White House and produce a concert in tribute to the first black president and his wife was something I never thought I would be able to experience.
41:20
And just to give you some background, the Idea for the concert came up.
41:24
I was at a brunch at, I think I can say this. [LAUGH]. Valerie. [LAUGH].
41:30
Gee, I'm looking at Stephanie, who used to work at the White House.
41:33
I was at brunch at Valerie Jarrett's house.
41:36
And there were maybe ten women there.
41:38
Friends of the first lady.
41:40
And it was the first time I had actually sat down over a meal.
41:43
Maybe it's was the second time.
41:45
Because I had lunch with here once when she first moved to town. Just the two of us.
41:49
But anyway, I was invited to this brunch.
41:52
And we're sitting down, talking about things.
41:52
And Michelle Obama just said, off the top of her head.
41:59
It would be really great if BET could do a concert at the White House. And I was like, yeah.
42:08
[LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> It's one of those things where you try not to be too exited.
42:12
>> I was like, yeah, that would be really great.
42:15
I said, when would you want to do it? [LAUGH] >> Yeah. We're pretty free. >> Right. And so she said, yeah.
42:22
And we can have all our favorite artists. I'm like, yeah.
42:26
And so we started talking about it.
42:27
And this was maybe three years ago. It was a long time ago.
42:31
>> And so she said, well, I'm going to have my people call your people. I'm like, yeah.
42:35
We're going to really do this.
42:36
I never thought it would happen.
42:37
I thought we were just talking.
42:40
But we started, our teams got together.
42:44
The problem was, PBS had the rights to do all concerts in the White House. Right.
42:50
So they tried to partner us with PBS. That didn't work.
42:56
And so it kind of got put on the back burner.
42:59
And then, it ended up where we found a way to do it by ourselves without PBS.
43:04
And it ended up being the last concert of that administration.
43:11
And by then, it just took on a whole different meaning.
43:15
It became a tribute concert.
43:17
So I think one thing you would be surprised about is that the president and first lady actually had a lot of input into who performed. >> Right.
43:28
>> They just said, this is our ideal list.
43:31
These are our favorite artists.
43:33
And this is who we want to perform.
43:34
And we want De La Soul, and blah blah blah.
43:38
So that whole process was amazing.
43:40
The back and forth with the White House.
43:42
>> Did they get on the dance floor, and get involved?
43:45
There was not a dance floor, but they did dance.
43:47
At the concert, they danced a lot.
43:50
If you watched it, you would see that on TV.
43:53
And I had the most incredible experience of sitting next to Michelle Obama.
43:58
There are just so many parts of that concert that were just unbelievable.
44:02
The other great part of it was it did become a tribute.
44:07
And the president and first lady were surprised that it was a tribute.
44:12
So when the performers started paying tribute to them from the stage.
44:16
They both kept looking at me saying, we didn't expect this. We didn't expect this.
44:19
This is really something.
44:21
It's like, how could we come in here, the last concert, and not make it a tribute concert?
44:26
So it was really, it was pretty incredible.
44:31
And it was fun seeing who they wanted and who they cared about.
44:38
I can say, it was a few problems getting some people in.
44:42
Because there are things you have to do to get into the White House. Sure.
44:46
[LAUGH] And things you cannot have done. [LAUGH] >> Yeah. More importantly, yeah.
44:53
>> So that was a little bit of a balancing act. And I won't name names. Sure.
44:57
But it was a funny process.
44:59
[LAUGHS] >> I'll let the audience ask for the names. >> Right. But it was a lot of fun. Perfect.
45:04
And we had a party afterwards.
45:07
And then Dave Chappelle talked about it on Saturday Night Live. How cool was that?
45:13
He was like, I was at this night at the White House.
45:16
And we're like, wow, he's talking about our party >> That never happens with our parties here. No? It doesn't?
45:23
[LAUGH] >> Well, you may have a chance to recruit some of the Obama family.
45:27
You can help us [INAUDIBLE], yeah.
45:29
Yeah, in the next couple of years. >> So.
45:35
But that was a great question.
45:37
>> Thank you so much for coming here today.
45:38
>> You were terrific, thank you.
45:39
[LAUGH] >> [APPLAUSE] [MUSIC]