Black Entertainment Television

"After a thirty-minute meeting, I promised to give him half a million dollars for his idea. TCI agreed to give Bob $180,000 for a 20 percent stake in Black Entertainment Television (BET) and loan the remaining $320,000."

"I also have had the rare opportunity to help some gifted entrepreneurs with great ideas, like Bob Johnson, who came to me with a concept for a cable channel appealing to African Americans called Black Entertainment Television (BET). After a thirty-minute meeting, I loaned Bob $320,000 and gave him $180,000 for a 20 percent stake in BET. He later became one of the first Black billionaires in America. And John Hendricks, who called me in 1985 in a last-ditch play to help save his struggling but promising network called Discovery. TCI wired John $500,000 within forty-eight hours after I hung up the phone with him. Prior to its merger with Warner Bros., Discovery reached a market cap of $16 billion and could be seen in more than 220 countries and territories, in fifty languages."