Entertainment

TV PRESS TOUR: Network plans to roll out 3 unscripted series, roll over rival TV One

02:09 PM CST on Friday, January 13, 2006

By ED BARK / The Dallas Morning News

PASADENA, Calif. – Not too proud to brag, BET is entering its second quarter-century as the self-designated "new school" home of "everything cool in African-American culture."

As such it intends to squelch upstart rival TV One, which will celebrate its second anniversary on Jan. 19.

The two networks aimed their latest pitches at TV critics Tuesday on day one of a midseason "press tour" that will keep going and going and going – through Jan. 22. BET's show of force began with the pulsating sounds of the Grambling University drum line, which marched into a hotel ballroom with a bang.

"Consider what you heard a wakeup drumbeat for the new BET," said president and CEO Debra Lee, who succeeded the network's founder, Robert Johnson, last June.

Seldom short on self-congratulatory rhetoric, BET proceeded to stage-manage its 45-minute session to the point of distributing printed, planted questions to some reporters. Popcorn and football-shaped cookies also were provided beforehand, with the day climaxed by a late-night BET-hosted hospitality suite. Sweet? Not if you didn't partake.

Ms. Lee also introduced new entertainment president Reginald Hudlin, who directed the first episode of UPN's much-acclaimed Everybody Hates Chris and is executive producer of Cartoon Network's The Boondocks . Its creator, Aaron McGruder, has been an outspoken critic of BET's programming lineup, which long has been dominated by music videos, standup comedy, broadcast-network reruns and infomercials.

"Aaron is a very talented social critic" whose opinions are his own, Mr. Hudlin said diplomatically.

"Just to have one critic out there or several critics is not a death knell," Ms. Lee added.

BET highlighted three new unscripted series as evidence of its bigger, bolder approach.

The six-episode Season of the Tiger, premiering in May, will document days and nights in the lives of Grambling's renowned marching band. Sunday morning's Meet the Faith, starting March 19, gathers religious leaders to discuss "the day's hottest topics." And the four-part Lil' Kim: Countdown to Lockdown chronicles the rap diva's last two weeks of freedom before she recently began serving a one-year, one-day sentence for refusing to cooperate with authorities in a shooting incident.

A promotional clip seemed to unduly laud Lil' Kim as being true to her principles.

"Is she a leader? Is she a victim? Watch the show and decide for yourselves," Mr. Hudlin then told critics.

He later assured, however, that BET will "take a very serious look at her life and her choices and the consequences of those choices. We do not look away from the hard truth that's going on."

After the session, Mr. Hudlin said he's eager to at long last launch BET's first scripted comedy series.

"We thought it would be a couple of years from now, but we're trying to see if we can put together an economic model to make it happen by the end of the year," he said. "We're very anxious to do something."

Ms. Lee discounted any rivalry between BET and TV One, which bills itself as a "lifestyles" network aimed at a more adult black audience.

"They're doing things we did 20 years ago," she said of TV One, which reaches 25 million homes. "Their promise of great new programming hasn't really materialized. Right now they're not our major concern in terms of competition."

TV One president and CEO Johnathan Rodgers said he expects BET to win any race to develop an unscripted comedy series.

"They're in 80 million homes and make about 20 times more than we do," he said.

TV One's new programming initiatives include a reality series about a west Oakland custom paint shop and documentaries on black theater.

There's also Cosmetic Surgery: The Changing Face of Black Beauty, a one-hour special on changing attitudes in the African-American community toward facelifts, nose jobs, etc.

It begs the question of America's most famously doctored African-American, Michael Jackson.

Dr. Monte Harris, who hails from Mr. Jackson's hometown of Gary, Ind., said that the King of Pop has been on the receiving end of "devastating results."

"In no way do I think he appreciates or wants to look the way he does," said Dr. Harris, director of Washington, D.C.'s Cultura Cosmetic Medical Spa. "Hopefully we won't make the mistakes that were made on Michael Jackson in the years to come."

Billy Ray Cyrus and his 13-year-old daughter, Miley, will replicate those roles in Hannah Montana, a new comedy series coming in March on The Disney Channel.

Miley is Miley Stewart, who leads a "secret double life" as pop star Hannah Montana. Billy Ray plays widowed poppa Robby Stewart, who embarrasses his daughter in an early episode by singing an old potty-training ditty with the refrain "I like to sing, I like to dance, but I can't do with poopy in my pants."

Mr. Cyrus said he "tried stoppin' " his daughter from becoming an entertainer. "This business has a lot of heartbreak ahead of it."

But Miley wouldn't be deterred. "I love being, like, entertaining," she said. "I love having an audience."

Her favorite episodes of Dad's old PAX network series Doc were "the ones I'm in," said Miley. "That's the only time we really sat down and watched it."

The series co-stars 13-year-old Emily Osment, whose older brother, Haley Joel (The Sixth Sense), "has always been very supportive," she says.

Dallas-raised singer/songwriter Lisa Loeb wants a new, good man. She'll search for one on E!'s #1 Single, an eight-part reality series scheduled to premiere on Jan. 22.

Ms. Loeb, 37, on the rebound from back-to-back six-year relationships, looked cute-as-a-button eligible in a strapless black dress, light-brown cowboy boots and what E! describes as her "trademark cat-eyed glasses."

"I love The Bachelor and I love Elimidate, but this isn't that show," she said.

She wants to be a married mom and sort of knows what kind of man she wants. He ideally would be someone within 10 years of her age who enjoys music and embraces spiritualism. A deal breaker? Any man prone to "yamming" is not for her, she said, demonstrating by making an audible chewing noise.

E-mail ebark@dallasnews.com