| (NEW YORK, NY) – March 4, 2019– BET Networks for the sixth consecutive year premiered The 20th Annual Super Bowl Gospel Celebration. This year’s celebration was hosted by National radio and TV personality Rickey Smiley and singer and TV personality Adrienne Bailon Houghton. The annual NFL-Sanctioned event, took place during Super Bowl LIII week aired on BET Saturday, February 2nd and reached 1.4M viewers during its premiere telecast. The premiere telecast grew +26% among total viewers 2+.* Additionally, the premiere telecast ranked as the #1 Religious/Gospel themed program on all TV for the 17/18 and 18/19 seasons.* “I am overwhelmed with joy at the response to this year’s celebration. Merging Faith and Football is something I look forward to each year and I’m honored to share it with the world,” says Super Bowl Gospel Celebration founder, Melanie Few. The one-hour special featured performances by Kirk Franklin, Tasha Cobbs Leonard, The Winans, Lecrae, Hezekiah Walker, Tamia, Koryn Hawthorne, and the Super Bowl Gospel NFL Players Choir. The special also included appearances by Cam Newton and NeNe Leake and honored Denver Broncos linebacker Von Miller with the annual “Faith in Action” Award for his work with his charity Von’s Vision. |
| ABOUT THE SUPER BOWL GOSPEL CELEBRATION:The Super Bowl Gospel Celebration was launched in Miami in 1999 during Super Bowl XXXIII weekend. The event became the first, and remains the only Gospel concert sanctioned by the National Football League (NFL). The show has drawn crowds in the thousands and has demonstrated growth year-after-year, selling out venues in major Super Bowl host cities including Dallas, Tampa, Detroit, Jacksonville, Houston and Phoenix.
ABOUT BET NETWORKS:BET Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: 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 90 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 HER, a 24-hour entertainment network targeting the African-American Woman; BET Music Networks – BET Jams, BET Soul and BET Gospel; BET Home Entertainment; BET Live, BET’s growing festival business; BET Mobile, which provides ringtones, games and video content for wireless devices; and BET International, which operates BET around the globe. |
