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Recent government research suggests that African-Americans are far less likely to be online than white Americans. "Black and Hispanic households are roughly one-third as likely to have home Internet access as households of Asian/Pacific Islander descent, and roughly two-fifths as likely as white households," according to the U.S. Department of Commerce report.

Can Johnson and BET.com help reverse the trend?

Perhaps. The question is whether they can do so without wreaking havoc on the African-American sites that pioneered the black community space. Though they have deeper histories on the Net, none can compete with BET for name recognition or for assets that would enable them to add bells and whistles to their sites or create big marketing campaigns.

Johnson has learned well how to dominate a market, with Black Entertainment Television, which started off as a small cable company showing little more than old movies with an all-black cast for two hours per week in 1980, and became a hugely popular around-the-clock network. And it sounds as if he has similar designs on the Internet. "We are going to brand the Internet, much the way we branded cable some 16 years ago," Johnson said in a 1997 Washington Post Magazine story.

But BET.com says it won't muscle out the competition. "It's not our goal, and even if it was our goal, we think it can't be achieved," says Mills, the COO. "Our goal is simply to be the best."

Still, it's hard to disregard BET's status in the cable world. While there are many black-owned magazines, radio stations, even several black-owned movie production companies, no other black-owned cable entity has sprung up in the 20 or so years since the birth of BET. "There are serious barriers to entry in the cable industry," says Mills. These serious barriers presumably exist for whites as they do for blacks; yet we have dozens of white-owned cable companies and only one black-owned cable network.

Could Johnson and BET.com come to dominate the African-American portal space in the same way? Already, the company has attracted the largest investment in a black-owned Internet company ever -- and brags about it. "Thirty-five million dollars, which is a bunch of cash. And all cash," says Mills. "It was a significant amount of capital to fund our start-up." Other African-American-oriented Web portals beat the bushes for years trying to attract major venture capital money, and some have found that it has only been with the entry of BET that deep-pocketed investors took notice of their sites. Ellington says that BET's announcement instantly tripled Netnoir's valuation.

With money to fund both content and marketing and its connections in the cable TV industry, BET.com has the potential to lock onto a lot of advertising dollars. Could other black-oriented Web sites be squeezed out by a new mega-player?

"It will never happen.," says Willie Atterbery, Chairman and CEO of Afronet.com. "The Internet is too big, is growing too much, for any one site to offer everything that an African-American consumer would want."

Besides, BET is a little late to the African-American market online. Both Netnoir and Blackvoices have been on the Web for about five years; they have developed loyal followings and know a thing or two about doing business on the Internet. Cooper says, "We've learned about our customers, about the Internet, and what advertisers want. Our history gives us an important head start on others who are just coming into cyberspace."

Johnson may be new to the Net, but he is well aware of its opportunities; he says that he wants to take BET.com public. "To the extent that there is an opportunity with an IPO," says Mills, "then we would pursue that opportunity to access Internet currency and to leverage and acquire more properties." In the meantime, none of his competitors sound too concerned.

Ellington, of Netnoir, says, "There is a big enough market out there. When BET does marketing, Netnoir is one click away. And vice versa. This validates my work over the last five years. There's going to be a Hertz and an Avis. And they both will make a lot of money."
salon.com | Oct. 6, 1999

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