Rumors that BET has suspended the Hip Hop Awards and Soul Train Awards have been confirmed.
On Tuesday (Aug. 5), Billboard published an interview with BET CEO Scott Mills where he reflected on the channel’s 45-year anniversary. On a somber note, Mills revealed that BET will no longer air the annual Hip Hop and Soul Train Awards.
“I would say that it’s less about them being no longer and more about our team having to reimagine them for this changing media landscape that we find ourselves in,” Mills said. “I think what we’re going to see are more people taking franchises and saying, ‘This might have started on linear television, but now I’m going to move it to another space. Do I move it to streaming? Or do I move it to another platform?’ So for BET linear, we have suspended the Soul Train and Hip Hop award shows.”
Though the two award shows have been put on hiatus, there may be hope in the future.
“We have a team that’s actively thinking about where those award shows might best live as the media climate continues to evolve,” Mills added. “They aren’t gone. And we also still have the NAACP Image Awards and the Stellar Awards.”
