BET recently announced the indefinite suspension of the BET Hip-Hop Awards. While the network insists these events aren’t gone for good and are simply being reimagined for a changing media climate, it’s worth exploring the deeper forces shaping this decision.

The most obvious assumption is the growing decline of traditional cable viewership, especially among young people who now prefer to watch their favorite shows and personalities on demand through streaming services. And of course, with shrinking viewership comes shrinking ad revenue, which leads to tighter budgets—and award shows are expensive to produce. If these are indeed the main reasons, then BET and its parent company likely made a wise and fiscally responsible decision.

But there’s more to this story. 

Streaming data and public discourse point to deeper issues, specifically regarding the quality and reception of today’s hip-hop music. According to Luminate’s 2023 U.S. Year-End Music Report, older catalog music is outstreaming new releases, with recent music making up only about 25% of all streams—and that share is still falling.

This trend, combined with increasing criticism about the vulgarity, misogyny, and violence in rap music and renewed conversations about how gangsta rap shaped the genre, suggests the problem isn’t just that people no longer watch traditional TV. It may also be that they’re simply not interested in much of the new music being made today.

The suspension of the BET Hip-Hop Awards, a once highly anticipated event with its legendary cyphers driving major viewership, should be taken as more than just a programming note. Together with the streaming data, it signals not only that BET needs to strategize, but that hip-hop as a genre and the music industry as a whole may need to rethink its direction.

If audiences are tuning out of current music, then changing platforms or stronger marketing alone won’t fix the issue. The problem isn’t just where people are watching, it’s what they want to hear.