"BET Awards 12" is the #1 Awards Show on Cable, Drawing 7.4 Million Total Viewers

FOR THE THIRD YEAR IN A ROW, BET AWARDS 12 DOMINATED TWITTER'S TOP TRENDING TOPICS WITH OVER 10 MILLION TWEETS

4.4 MILLION HOUSEHOLDS TUNED IN TO WATCH HOST SAMUEL L. JACKSON AND PERFORMANCES AND SPECIAL APPEARANCES BY USHER, D'ANGELO, NICKI MINAJ, BEYONCE, JAY-Z, CHRIS BROWN, BRANDY AND MONICA

NEW YORK, July 2, 2012 -- The live premiere of the BET AWARDS 12 on Sunday, July 1, drew 7.4 million total viewers and ignited Twitter with over 10 million unique tweets, making it the #1 awards show on cable this year. In addition, the BET AWARDS has consistently ranked among the top five cable awards shows every year among total viewers. This year's show, which aired from 8:00 p.m.-11:41 p.m.,* featured performances and appearances by Mariah Carey, D'Angelo, Nicki Minaj, Melanie Fiona, Brandy, Monica, Beyonce, Jay-Z, Chaka Khan, Chante Moore, Valerie Simpson, Chris Brown, Yolanda Adams, Tyler Perry, Faith, Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, Meagan Good, Elle Varner and Cedric The Entertainer. In addition, the BET AWARDS 12 PRE SHOW drew in 2.5 million total viewers while the BET AWARDS 12 POST SHOW garnered 3.6 million total viewers.

The Coca-Cola Viewers' Choice Award, which was given to Mindless Behavior, received more than 26 million votes by mobile text and online voting. There was an extraordinarily high level of fan passion and commitment this year with one ultimate fan voting over 280,000 times and many fans voting over 200,000 times each.

The live telecast dominated the social media and digital world as well:

BET.com experienced a record setting day of show traffic across all key metrics including 88% increase in daily unique viewers

Over ten million tweets occurred during the live BET AWARDS 12 telecast, up 683% from the BET AWARDS 11

#BETAWARDS was the third most social tentpole event in 2012, outperforming the Academy Awards

#BETAWARDS averaged 23,932 tweets-per-minute during the live telecast, peaking at nearly 115,189 tweets per minute at 8:20 p.m.*

#BETAWARDS trended for over 10 hours and peaked as the #1 trend topic worldwide

#BETAWARDS experienced 109 separate trending topics from pre-show to post show

The official BET AWARDS 12 Facebook page received 1.4 million likes

BET Mobile experienced an all-time high engagement of 25.4 million page views on show day

The BET AWARDS APP received over 270k downloads

Another high point in the night that was too big to miss was the reveal of BET and Centric Networks' new brand campaigns. BET Networks' "We Got You" message was displayed throughout the night while Centric's "What's Good" was also introduced making it the first time BET Networks has ever premiered two brand campaigns in one night.

"We created this campaign to convey to our core audiences, the African American community and lovers of black culture, that we clearly understand their needs and are committed to creating niche, unique and engaging programming exclusively for them," said Vicky Free, Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice-President of Marketing, BET Networks.

Stephen G. Hill, BET's President of Music Programming and Specials, Lynne Harris Taylor, BET's Vice President of Specials, served as Executive Producers for the BET AWARDS 12, along with Jesse Collins, CEO of Jesse Collins Entertainment.

Official sponsors of The BET AWARDS 12 include Cadillac(R), Coca-Cola(R), Ford(R), State Farm(R) and Subway(R).

For a list of winners from the BET AWARDS 12, please visit www.bet.com/betawards. Get up-to-the-minute reactions about the BET AWARDS 12 by following @BETAWARDS on Twitter (www.twitter.com).

*All times ET/PT

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; CENTRIC, a 24-hour entertainment network targeting the 25- to 54-year-old African-American audience; BET Digital Networks - 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 Event Productions, a full-scale event management and production company with festivals and live events spanning the globe; 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.