End of an Era? – BET Hip Hop Awards and Soul Train Awards Are on Hiatus

Rumors that BET has suspended the Hip Hop Awards and Soul Train Awards have been confirmed.

BET CEO Announces Suspension of Hip Hop and Soul Train Awards

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.”

The End of an Era?

The BET Hip Hop Awards, an offshoot of the BET Awards, first started in 2006. For the first 10 years, it was held in Atlanta and has since also taken place in Miami and Las Vegas. Last year’s award show took place in Sin City and was hosted by Fat Joe.

The Soul Train Awards, an award ceremony honoring the best in Black culture named after the long-running television show of the same name, have an even lengthier history. The first STA was in 1987. The ceremony ran annually up until 2007. BET revived the awards show in 2009 and began airing it until 2023, which marked the last event.

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