BET+ to launch ad tier as brands seek Black audiences

BET is bringing ads to its streaming service, the Paramount-owned network announced today. BET+ Essential will launch at 6 a.m. ET on June 25, ahead of the 2023 BET Awards that will air later that night. The ad tier will offer viewers the same experience as the ad-free subscription, including a library of originals from Tyler Perry, for $5.99 per month. The ad-free tier is currently priced at $9.99 per month. It currently has approximately 3.3 million subscribers, according to Louis Carr, BET’s president of media sales. Also read: Revry to launch LGBTQ+ ad network The ad tier comes as agencies and advertisers have made commitments to increased efforts in diverse-targeted and owned media. “Several years ago, more and more advertisers started to realize the opportunity that Black consumers represented to the industry and to their brands, and a lot of them now are saying the best way to do that is through targeted or black-owned media properties,” Carr said. “We are still the biggest scale player in the upfront that’s targeting African Americans.” Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs At launch, the BET+ Essential subscription will feature an ad load of approximately six minutes per hour, slightly higher than the four-to-five minutes used by Netflix and Disney+. These ads will take the form of pre- and mid-roll ads in series and pre-roll ads in movies. A 30-minute show will feature 90 seconds of pre-roll and a 90-second break within the show, with hour-long episodes upping to two mid-roll breaks. Movies will be preceded by two-and-a-half minutes of advertising. The BET+ ad tier will utilize Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings product for measurement Carr said the new BET+ inventory will be sold to advertisers during this year’s upfront negotiations. BET Media Group will be pitching the product independently of Paramount, which hosted intimate gatherings with agencies throughout the past week. BET held its own events—last week in Chicago and earlier this week in New York City—to pitch advertisers. The news comes amid reports of a potential sale of BET. Carr declined to discuss a potential sale. Rumored buyers include Tyler Perry, Byron Allen and Sean “Diddy” Combs. Last November, Paramount announced that VH1 had shifted from Paramount’s portfolio to BET Media Group’s. Carr said VH1’s content will pivot to “embrace the Black culture” aspects more directly, and that in combination with BET and its spin-off channels, VH1 and the BET+ ad tier round out the network’s ability to be “everywhere, every day, all at once with our community so that we can reach them, we can influence them, we can impact them at all times.”

BET+ to launch ad tier as brands seek Black audiences

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