Robert L. Johnson helped build a television business around Black audiences. Born in Hickory, Mississippi, in 1946, he grew up largely in Freeport, Illinois. He studied at the University of Illinois and earned a master's degree at Princeton, and his career went on to span cable television, company ownership and professional basketball.
In 1979, Johnson and Sheila Johnson co-founded Black Entertainment Television. BET began broadcasting in January 1980 with two hours of programming each week, at a time when few television outlets aimed their programming at Black audiences. The company grew into a network reaching millions of homes, with additional traditional and digital channels, in an era when cable television was becoming one of the country's most profitable media businesses.
BET reached an ownership milestone in 1991 as the first African American-owned company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. A decade later, the sale to Viacom was completed.
After BET, he built The RLJ Companies, a portfolio spanning hotel real estate, automotive dealerships, private equity and content streaming. The hotel business operates as a publicly traded real estate investment trust: RLJ Lodging Trust went public in 2011, followed by RLJ Entertainment in 2012. Management was shared; the company identifies H. Van Sinclair as president, chief executive and general counsel, with responsibility for portfolio direction and operations.
Sports ownership added another chapter. In December 2002, NPR reported Johnson's purchase of a future NBA franchise in Charlotte and described him as the first Black primary owner of a major sports franchise. The team became the Charlotte Bobcats.
