BET has announced that it has decided to put a pause on two of its biggest awards shows… the Soul Train Awards and the Hip Hop Awards, sending fans reeling.
BET CEO Scott Mills announced the news during a sitdown with Billboard.
“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. 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?’” he told the outlet.
Mill continued, “So for BET linear, we have suspended the Soul Train and Hip-Hop award shows. But we have a team that’s actively thinking about where those award shows might best live as the media climate continues to evolve.”
Over the past decades, the awards shows have dropped by a massive 30% in viewership. Newsbreak reported that the 2025 BET Awards experienced a 50% drop in ratings compared to the previous year.