Content Creator and Television Executive
At the intersection of Music and visual distribution is where you’ll find Stephen Hill leaning on the street sign.
Most recently, Hill served as the EVP, Creative at the legendary Dick Clark Productions. He was responsible for overseeing the creative directions of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest, The Golden Globes, The Academy of Country Music Awards, The Billboard Awards, The American Music Awards and The Streamys.
Hill is the former President of Programming for BET Networks, where he spent 18 years
developing and creating programs for the leading provider of entertainment for the AfricanAmerican audience and consumers of Black culture globally.
Hill is best known for heading the team that developed and implemented the Award winning tentpole shows on BET including the BET Hip Hop Awards, Black Girls Rock!, BET Honors and the show with the largest African-American viewership every year since its inception, The BET
Awards.
Also, under Hill’s leadership, the BET team built a noteworthy catalog of quality and beloved programming including “Real Husbands of Hollywood,” “The New Edition Story, ”College Hill” , and “Tales.”
During his tenure, he supervised the growth and popularity of the network’s music shows and live events, creating not only unforgettable content and some of the most talked about moments
in television, but iconic franchises including “106 & Park,” and “Rap City: The Bassment.”
In addition to behind the desk duties, Hill occasionally showed up on front of the camera; most notably as the host for the NAACP Image Award Winning “BET News presents: An Aaliyah Reflection”, as the host for the BET Michael Jackson: Bad 25 special, and as the host for “BET’s Remembrance of Prince” in April 2016. In 2004, Prince sat down with Hill for a jovial, wideranging conversation (seen by over 1.5 million people) that has been referred to on YouTube as
“Prince’s Best Interview” (PRINCE BEST INTERVIEW AND PERFORMANCE)
Prior to joining BET Networks in 1999, Stephen worked for four years at MTV in New York City as Director of Music Programming. As Director, Hill was responsible for selecting and programming all genres of videos for airplay, working with talent and supervising the network’s
standards processes.
Hill got his start in music working with industry legend, Elroy Smith, who was programming director at WILD-AM in Boston, MA. In 1993, Hill and his team took WILD-AM to its highest ratings ever, beating six full-time FM stations in the process. Hill has also done extensive work with ABC Radio Network’s Urban Gold Format, launching their 24-hour format. Gaining many
accolades for his work with ABC Radio Networks, he also served as executive producer for the Tom Joyner Morning Show.
Hill credits much of his success to his childhood passion of announcing various songs that he kept on a tape player. He began shaping his formal career at Brown’s University’s radio station, WBRU-FM, in Providence, RI.
