BET News Travels to the Frontline of the Issues Devastating the African American...

BET News Travels to the Frontline of the Issues Devastating the African
American Community with 'HEART OF THE CITY' Premiering Saturday, September 12,
at 10:00 p.m.*
New Monthly Docu-Series Tackles the Headlines Facing Black America, Beginning
With the Drop-Out Rate in Detroit

PASADENA, Calif., July 30 /PRNewswire/ -- From gang wars to police brutality
to the sexually transmitted disease epidemic facing young women, BET News goes
inside America's cities to examine the issues devastating our communities in a
new one-hour documentary series, HEART OF THE CITY. Each month HEART OF THE
CITY will tell the stories of those most directly affected by leading issues
in the African American community, and go beyond simply reporting on the
challenges to highlighting the efforts of those working tirelessly to create
change with real solutions. Premiering on Saturday, September 12, at 10:00
p.m.*, HEART OF THE CITY will first travel to Detroit, the ground zero of our
national education crisis, to understand why so many African Americans are
failing and why the system is failing our kids.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070716/BETNETWORKSLOGO )

What's been a growing problem for years is now a full-blown emergency. More
than 6 million American students drop out of high school, most of them Black
and Latino. Almost half of all African American youth never finish high
school. That's more than double the rate of whites. During the premiere
episode of HEART OF THE CITY: DROPPED OUT IN DETROIT, BET News will travel to
the predominantly Black city of Detroit, where the statistics are even more
shocking: two out of every three teens drop out.

The decision to quit school has a long-lasting domino effect on the lives of
these youths, their families, communities, cities and even states, which
suffer huge losses in income revenue, skilled productivity and increased
social spending. In Detroit, and nationwide, drastic solutions are called for.
The Obama administration has sounded the alarm over the crisis and has zeroed
in on Detroit to come up with a formula to turn the tide of this national
crisis. Through strong and intimate storytelling, HEART OF THE CITY: DROPPED
OUT IN DETROIT will break down the causes and effects of this massive crisis,
and present them through the eyes of students, parents, teachers and
educationists living this crisis.

For more on HEART OF THE CITY, visit www.bet.com/heartofthecity.

*All times ET/PT

About BET Networks
BET Networks, a division of Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), is the nation's
leading provider of quality entertainment, music, news and public affairs
television programming for the African-American audience. The primary BET
channel reaches more than 98 million households and can be seen in the United
States, Canada, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom and sub-Saharan Africa. BET
is the dominant African-American consumer brand with a diverse group of
business extensions: BET.com, a leading Internet destination for Black
entertainment, music, culture, and news; BET Digital Networks - BET J, BET
Gospel and BET Hip Hop, attractive alternatives for cutting-edge entertainment
tastes; BET Home Entertainment, a collection of BET-branded offerings for the
home environment including DVDs and video-on-demand; BET Mobile, which
provides ringtones, games and video content for wireless devices; and BET
International, which operates BET in the United Kingdom and oversees the
extension of BET network programming for global distribution.

SOURCE BET Networks

Tricia Newell +1-212-975-8230, tricia.newell@bet.net, or Lyntina Townsend,
+1-202-608-2745, lyntina.townsend@bet.net, both of BET Networks