When Tyler Perry and BET partnered in 2019 to create content for both the cable network and its new streaming service, BET+, they had a clear goal: Cooperation, rather than competition. BET CEO Scott Mills compares BET’s relationship with the “Madea” creator to how Pixar changed the animation game for Disney.
“If BET, by analogy, is to Black viewers what Disney is to families, then when Tyler Perry came up on the scene, it was similar to when Pixar came onto the scene,” Mills said. “Disney had an animation business that was just shocked by the extraordinary success of Pixar. Disney ultimately had this great vision that as opposed to competing with Pixar, they should bring Pixar onto their side.”
Instead of dividing and conquering, they would join forces to build and expand together. And according to Nielsen‘s ratings among Black viewers, that has been a recipe for success. Of the list of top cable series among Black audiences, BET titles make up seven of the Top 10 shows — five of which come from its partnership with Perry.
“There’s this ownership of me from my audience, and it’s been that way since I’ve been on stage,” said Perry. “I’m brother, cousin, uncle, husband, friend, to my audience, and we share this kindred relationship. The way that I’m speaking to my audience is the way that I want shows to speak to me. I want to be entertained this kind of way.”
“Sistas” Season 6, which returned Oct. 18, averaged 936,000 viewers this fall, followed by spinoff “Zatima,” which reached 630,000 viewers. Meanwhile, “The Oval” attracted 589,000 viewers with its Season 5 this fall, which returned on Oct. 17. More recently, Nielsen’s data also revealed that the show has recorded over 10 billion minutes viewed in multiplatform viewing across its five seasons.
According to Nielsen ratings, both “Sistas” and “The Oval” rank as No. 1 and No. 4 on linear among Black audiences age 2+ between July and October. Other titles in the top ten include “Ms. Pat Settles It” (612,000), “House of Payne” (499,000), “First Wives Club” (412,000), “Assisted Living” (404,000), and “The Ms. Pat Show” (398,000). (The second airing window of “The Ms. Pat Show” was recorded during this viewing window, which likely contributed to viewership numbers ranking below its leading lady’s newly-launched series, which premiered on Oct. 18).
The only non-BET series on the list are Bravo’s “Real Housewives of Atlanta” and MTV’s “Love & Hip-Hop Atlanta.”
BET saw a year-over-year increase in the key 18-49 age demographic over the last four years, per Nielsen. In 2020, it experienced a jump of 1%. In 2021 and 2022, the network had a 6% lift. In 2023 to date, the network experienced an 8% increase in share growth in the demographic.
Most of BET’s shows are aired on the cable network and its streaming platform, BET+, but some like “The Ms. Pat Show,” “First Wives Club,” and “Zatima” are released first on the streamer before getting a second window on cable. The network continues to experiment with this formula as it continues to develop new shows, in the same way other cablers like ABC/Hulu and CBS/Paramount+ are also exploring.
But BET has also seen its share of misfires. “Bigger,” for example, ran for two seasons on BET+ before it was canceled.
“We love the concept of that show and part of the challenge is not every good show works,” said Mills. “That’s just one of the things that you learn in television. That was a really good show, was a really great idea, and it was well executed. We just didn’t see it resonate with our audiences.”
Perry started off with a small batch of new original programming to lead the network and it’s newly-launched streamer. Among those shows, “Sistas” opened in 2019 on BET’s linear network, along with White House soap “The Oval,” averaging 3.3 million viewers per night. At the time of its launch, “The Oval” was ranked as the No. 1 new scripted series for general market.
Over the course of four years, both ‘Sistas” and “The Oval” have since spawned a Tyler Perry Creative Universe (to use another Disney analogy, via Marvel) at BET.
Perry later launched two spinoffs from those shows: “Zatima” (which follows the love story of “Sistas” characters Zac and Fatima) and “Ruthless” — the story of “The Oval’s” Ruth Truesdale as she’s forced to play nice with a scandalous religious cult of powerful sex crazed fanatics in the hopes of freeing herself and her daughter.
“We knew that Tyler was creating an array of content that was really resonating with the audiences and we thought, ‘what if we brought all of that together and we used our relationship with Tyler to create this really powerful foundation of content that was going to ensure that audiences were just continuously coming back to BET?’ Then with that safely established, we could then explore more,” said Mills.
As “The Oval” reached its 100th episode milestone on Tuesday night, Perry and series leads Ed Quinn and Kron Moore praised Perry for crafting such salacious and villainous spouses to lead the drama.
“I always tried to articulate what it’s like working for Tyler. Where he came from, what he’s built, what his vision is for the long term, and now you have this incredible movie [“Maxine’s Baby”] that explains it all,” said Quinn, who portrays the caring but vicious fictional President Franklin. “In the microcosm of ‘The Oval,’ you’ll understand what he’s built, what his audience is expecting from him. You just have license to be so fun and so crazy, because that is the secret sauce. That is the fuel that powers the Tyler Perry empire, these incredible salacious stories, these crazy iconic characters that come into people’s living rooms every once a week and entertain them.”
Now, as Hollywood quickly jumps to get back to work following the end of the dual strikes, Tyler Perry Studios also accelerated its production schedule. The mogul is working on four shows as he prepares for a busy Q1.
“It’s not just the extraordinary success of his content and the breadth of it, but it’s also the speed with which he’s able to make it and the way he’s able to respond dynamically,” Mills said. “That constantly innovative perspective that he has, that ability to approach things in ways that nobody else can, is one of the powerful things that Tyler brings to any partnership.”
