BET UK Has Stopped Commissioning Originals: Here’s Why That Matters for Black British Creatives
I have been working in PR and communications for Black British creatives and entrepreneurs for a long time. In that time, I have watched platforms come and go, diversity pledges get made and quietly shelved and talented people leave this country because the industry simply did not make space for them. So when I heard that BET UK would no longer be commissioning original UK content, I was not surprised but I was irritated and I think we need to talk about why this matters.
BET UK's original slate included shows like Mission Motherland, Moments That Shaped: Queer Black Britain, The Evolution of Black British Music, and Dating Black. They were unique and reflected the diversity of the Black British communities that BET UK was aim at but the majority of the content was American. In fact the number of original shows commissioned tell a sobering story. BET commissioned eight UK shows in 2025, down from 17 in 2024 and 14 in 2023. So some could argue that this was inevitable but it really shouldn’t have been.
I’ve spoken about the challenge of working in a media industry that does not reflect the diversity of the population it is supposed to serve. There are not as many Black media outlets in the UK as there are in the US and it can be genuinely difficult to get diverse stories into mainstream outlets when newsrooms are not as inclusive as they could and should be. What changes when a platform like BET UK pulls back from originals is that one of the few commissioning spaces specifically designed to address that gap simply disappears.
A Guardian investigation captured the mood perfectly - Black British TV makers were described as "fighting over scraps" amid a lack of opportunities despite the wave of diversity commitments that followed 2020. Those commitments, for many Black British creatives on the ground, never fully materialised into sustainable careers or consistent commissioning pipelines. The end of BET UK is yet another example of this.
The real question in British media sits behind the camera: who is shaping these stories? Representation without control and power can still miss. The real shift happens when ownership matches visibility, when the stories are not just about us but created by us.
Thinking about the fact that we even had BET UK which was supposed to give us days like #BlackToFront every day but failed to adequately centre Black British creative talent in my opinion.
— Ronke Lawal (@ronkelawal) September 10, 2021
BET UK originals should have been a place where Black British indie production companies were building track records and where directors were getting their first major commissions. It should have been somewhere for writers and editors could develop their craft inside a space that understood and valued what they brought. As a member of its target audience I don’t think it achieved that particularly when it came to drama and comedy. I think more could have been done to highlight dynamic talent across the board.
I mean I know it's an American owned channel but there just did not seem to be much effort made in commissioning Black British dramas and comedies. I'm not in the industry but BET UK could have been so much better than it was.
— Ronke Lawal (@ronkelawal) April 12, 2026
I don't understand why... https://t.co/N9vuWAa48j
Paramount’s decision to prioritise global content over UK originals with regards to BET UK is a business decision and of course I understand business decisions, I help people navigate them every day. But business decisions carry cultural weight and this one sends a message that Black British storytelling is a luxury to be shed when times get difficult rather than a cornerstone of what British television should be or perhaps it’s seen as an afterthought. I can’t shake the feeling that it felt like there was never a real sense of intentionality or structure.
The commissioning landscape for Black British content was already narrow and so it becomes much narrower now. What that means in practice is that the responsibility falls more heavily on the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, independent streamers and the growing ecosystem of Black British digital media to step up and fill the gap. It also means that Black British creatives need advocacy and community more than ever as they navigate an industry that continues to underinvest in their work.
As we know the talent is here but what we need is for the industry to stop treating that as something to be discovered in moments of corporate goodwill or “altruism” and start treating it as something worth building more permanently.