BET Awards nailed the challenge of honoring Black artists virtually while reckoning with current events

The Atlantic

This year's 20th BET Awards, simulcast on CBS for the first time, "had a difficult balance to achieve: It had to entertain and celebrate the biggest stars in black culture from a distance, while also reflecting on the reckoning with racism and inequality happening nationwide and around the world," says Shirley Li, adding: "Technically speaking, the show ran seamlessly. Sure, (Amanda) Seales’s audio at times sounded like she’d recorded underwater, and yes, some presenters chose to film in front of more aesthetically interesting backdrops than others—Naomi Campbell must have missed the memo about keeping the camera horizontal. But every performance, even with socially distanced band members and mask-wearing backup dancers, arrived meticulously crafted, making the show feel cohesive." Executive producer Connie Orlando prepared for weeks to meet this particular moment. "It was challenging, and I’m not going to pretend that it wasn’t, but it was challenging in a good way,” she says. “It’s an evolution … Our goal was just to set out and create a show where if you are home watching it, you still get the same feeling.”

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• BET Awards managed to make every artist a talking point by entirely reimagining what a virtual performance could be: “I would hear ‘virtual’ and cringe, because immediately people think of couch performances and iPhones,” says executive producer Connie Orlando. “So in my mind, it was always about redefining what ‘virtual’ can be. The goal was always, ‘How do we make this bigger? How do we surprise people? How do we push everything to the limit?’’ That’s what we set out to do.”
• BET Awards viewership soars 54% with CBS simulcast, amassing 3.7 million total viewers