Smiley, BET’s Chairman Take to the Air Over Firing

The furor over last week’s firing of “BET Tonight” host Tavis Smiley, which has prompted an avalanche of protests from his fans, has dramatically escalated, with both Smiley and BET Chairman Robert Johnson separately taking to the airwaves in the last few days to explain their sides.

In an extraordinary live Monday night address during a special edition of “BET Tonight,” Johnson told viewers that he was solely behind the decision to terminate Smiley from the nightly news/talk show, dismissing charges by Smiley supporters that BET’s new parent company, Viacom, had forced Smiley out.

Since Smiley’s firing, Johnson and BET have offered various explanations for the decision. The most recent, and most disputed, is that BET’s decision was prompted by an interview Smiley conducted with Sarah Jane Olson, a former Symbionese Liberation Army member now on trial in Los Angeles for her alleged involvement in a bomb-planting incident more than two decades ago. The report on Olson aired earlier this month on ABC, a rival of Viacom-owned CBS.

“It was my decision and my decision alone,” said Johnson during Monday night’s broadcast, explaining what he called “a lack of mutual business respect” between BET and Smiley.

Smiley fired back Tuesday during his regular stint on Tom Joyner’s syndicated radio show, blasting Johnson and rebutting the accusations.

In a separate interview, Smiley said, “I’ve been with BET for five years, and all I’ve done is represent this network to the best of my ability. . . . The impression that Mr. Johnson gives is that I am a traitor to the network, and I am insulted by such a reckless suggestion.”

The debate is expected to heat up today during a protest at a newsmaker luncheon sponsored by the Hollywood Radio and Television Society in Beverly Hills, where Viacom Chief Operating Officer Mel Karmazin is expected to give the keynote address. The protest is being staged by the Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center.

Claiming that BET has had “something of a difficult relationship with Tavis over the last five years,” Johnson added that the final straw came when Smiley conducted an exclusive interview with Olson. The interview aired March 1 during ABC’s “Primetime Live.”

The BET founder said Smiley, whose agency shopped the Olson interviews to broadcast networks, “never called us” to determine whether BET would be interested in airing what he called “a hot interview.” “We could have said yes or no, but we were never offered [it],” Johnson said. “Based on our five-year relationship, he should have asked BET, but he chose not to.”

Johnson said he made the move to appeal to viewers because of the negative response to Smiley’s termination. He said Smiley would survive the firing.

“Tavis will do very well as a talent in some other venue,” Johnson said. “But it will not be on BET. We wish him well.”

Supporters for Smiley had countercharged that it was Karmazin who was actually angered with the interview, since it aired on a CBS rival. The incident is said to have particularly angered Karmazin, because the Olson interview aired opposite the debut of CBS’ police drama “Big Apple,” which has performed poorly in the ratings. That triggered Karmazin to pressure Johnson to get rid of Smiley, according to Smiley’s supporters.

However, Johnson denied that Viacom was any part of the decision: “I know there are concerns that the independence of our black voice is being threatened by a white company. Mel Karmazin has nothing to do with this.” Johnson also defended his decision in taking phone calls and e-mails from viewers.

Explaining his side of the dispute, Smiley said that under his contract with BET, he is allowed to independently produce pieces for other outlets and appear on other networks as long as he promotes the fact that he is a talk-show host on BET. According to Smiley, “There was never a problem [of his appearance on other broadcast and cable shows] before Viacom bought BET.”

The interview in question grew out of a call Smiley said he received from Olson last month about doing an exclusive interview. He paid for a crew and facilities for the interview, spending “in the six figures out of my own pocket.”

ICM, which represents Smiley, offered the raw footage of the interview to the four major networks, including CBS, which “passed on the project,” Smiley said. However, CBS sources said the network was never contacted about the Olson interview.

“I did not violate my contract in any way,” maintained Smiley. “ABC News identified me as a talk-show host with BET. And when I went on ‘Good Morning America’ to promote the piece with Diane Sawyer, she also identified me as a talk-show host with BET.”

Among other television projects he has produced were two black “think tank” symposiums in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., that featured numerous black leaders. Both symposiums aired on the government network C-SPAN. He had asked BET previously to air the symposiums, “but they refused to do so.”

Of Johnson’s decision to terminate him, Smiley said, “What are you saying to black America when you will not air a serious discussion about the state of black America, yet you fire me because I have an interview with a white woman?”

He added, “They terminate my contract immediately because I sold one independent project to a mainstream white corporation, when Mr. Johnson sold an entire black network to a major white corporation. Go figure.”

BET last week announced that Smiley’s contract was not being renewed because the network was moving in a different programming direction, but that Smiley would continue hosting the show until September when his deal ended. But the network subsequently moved to terminate Smiley immediately after he complained publicly about his dismissal, which came via a fax to his agent.

“I launched, have hosted and executive-produced this show since its inception. . . . After five years . . . could not one person have picked up the phone to call me personally?” he said on Joyner’s show.