NAMIC Notebook

A symmetry to seeing BET’s Bob Johnson accept NAMIC’s ’05 Mickey Leland Humanitarian Award Tues as both BET and NAMIC celebrate 25 years. Johnson used his acceptance speech as a parting opportunity to frame industry action on diversity. "There are questions we should ask," he said. In 5 years, "will there be African-Americans in charge of, or in line for, running MSOs, being cable programmers, developing strategy for the convergence of video, voice and data? We shouldn’t wait 5 years for answers." — Programmers are like arms dealers-they’ll sell to anyone and everyone as they look to increase distribution. So, it was a little surprising to hear HBO’s Steve Pamon raise the issue of redlining Tues. "Our job is to educate the telcos," especially when it comes to redlining, he said. There is no correlation between affluence and the value of customers, he told NAMIC. — Earlier, Starz pres/CEO Bob Clasen and Bresnan’s Bill Bresnan admitted there’s room for improvement on diversity. Each noted 80-85% of upper mgmt at their companies is white.