BLACK CABLE NETWORK PLANS L.A. EXPANSION

For Robert Johnson and his Black Entertainment Television, today may well mark the start of a breakthrough 12 months. The ad-supported cable network that he founded and which he serves as president will observe its fifth anniversary this year, will come into Los Angeles via Communicom Cable and will have powerful HBO as a co-owner.

Johnson, 38, was in an expansive mood as he looked toward the new year during an interview at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim during the final hours of the cable-TV industry’s recent Western Show.

“More and more, BET is the network that black America plugs into for information and entertainment,” Johnson, president of the Washington, D.C-based network, said. “We launched on Jan. 25, 1980, as a two-hour-per-week service on Friday nights. In 1983 we went to six hours a day, seven days a week, and then this October we went to 24 hours.

“BET has really positioned itself to be an urban, contemporary channel. We’re going after that attractive urban audience of black and white consumers.”

Currently available in Los Angeles only via Jack Barry Cable in Westchester, Black Entertainment is expected to be carried by Communicom in Hollywood and adjacent areas as early as February.

Margaret Durborow, Communicom’s vice president of marketing and sales, said Black Entertainment “has been requested a great deal by our subscribers. We think it is a very positive service that will bring us many new subscribers.”

The network’s programming day consists of one eight-hour grouping of shows repeated three times. On weekdays, six of these hours feature music videos (for a total of 18 hours per day), with fewer hours of music on weekends. The videos lean heavily toward rhythm and blues, but also include rock and jazz, by black and white performers alike.

“We’ll do everything from B. B. King to the Manhattans to the Whispers,” said Johnson. “We show white artists as well, to maintain a good crossover to a broad urban audience.

“We’ve been hearing from some cable affiliates with addressable systems who say that viewing levels of our video music rival those of MTV. With BET on 24 hours, TV almost becomes like radio--people hear and see what’s on other channels and they begin to say, ‘Gee, I like this music.’ ”

Other original programming--all produced in Washington--includes an entertainment news show, a cooking program, a public affairs call-in show, a Sunday gospel music hour and black college sports. A women’s issues show will debut this month.

Also in the hopper is a talk show to be produced in Los Angeles. “The idea is not quite Johnny Carson,” explained Johnson, “but it will be interviews with entertainers as well as provocative personalities. We can’t afford to produce specials or miniseries yet, so we want to find an alternative way to work with black writers on the West Coast.”

Although the network is available to more than eight million viewers, it still is not profitable and, according to Johnson, will not be until it has more than 11 million homes. Johnson estimated that that number might be reached by the end of 1985.

HBO has just joined Black Entertainment’s family of owners, Taft Broadcasting and Tele-Communications Inc. (the nation’s largest operator of cable-TV systems). Each firm owns about 16% of the network, and Johnson owns the rest.

“What I’m proud of,” Johnson said, “is that a minority venture has attracted three of the top communications companies in the nation and has still maintained its minority control. These companies are saying that since cable is going into urban markets, BET is bound to succeed.”

Johnson, whose parents were factory workers, grew up with 10 brothers and sisters in Freeport, Ill. He wonders if growing up black will be different with the existence of his service.

“As a kid, my crush was on Hayley Mills, because that’s who I saw on TV,” Johnson said. “I don’t know what the social ramifications will be 15 years from now when young black people have grown up seeing not only what’s on CBS, NBC and ABC but also what is on BET.”

Apart from Black Entertainment, Johnson is also a partner in District Cable Inc., a new cable company that has won the District of Columbia franchise. The process has not been without its problems, and Johnson doesn’t plan to seek other such territories, explaining, “Franchising is a mean, competitive business.”

That can often be true of the cable network business as well, and Johnson has thrived in that environment. Or, as he puts it in a puckish moment of self-puffery, “Without patting myself on the back, the real story is ‘Cable Guy Makes Good in a Very Tough, Competitive Business.’ ”