Salim & Mara Brock Akil Leave BET, Ink New Deal With Warner Brothers TV

As a result, the fourth-season premiere of the show debuted in January 2011 with a historical 7.7 million viewers, making it the most-watched TV sitcom premiere in all of cable TV. Sure, “The Game” never reached those numbers again, but apparently, the show did pretty well in retrospect to have run for a total of nine seasons. The Washington Post says that over the past five years, the show had been the

number one scripted cable sitcom among adults 18-49.

More recently, BET’s first one-hour scripted drama series Being Mary Jane, which saw its series debut draw in about 3.3 million viewers, is executive produced by the duo. The show features actress Gabrielle Union in the role of successful TV news anchor Mary Jane Paul who seems to have it all except a handle on her identity and her love life. The show has also seen large success under the Akils dual-executive production and Salim’s direction as it remains BET’s number one show. Following the move to WBTV, Brock Akil will become an executive consultant for the show, leaving her show-runner duties behind. At this time, no new show runner for Being Mary Jane has been named leaving many to wonder if the show will be able to continue on, especially if the Akils are no longer fully involved.

Not much has popped up on Salim’s social media accounts regarding the new deal but according to Mara’s Instagram, much excitement abounds for the future:

This is JOY! This is what the little girl that lives in me looks like… She is all love and light and kind… and she is tough, resilient, fearless, hard-working, and the one who reminds me to stop pouting and get the job done because our dreams are at stake. This is me and the little girl in me celebrating completion! We finished what we started and that is our VICTORY!! She’s also thrilled about our future and all the ideas we hope to share in our new tomorrow… Let the record show that August 5, 2015 was a day full of JOY!! (Photo credit: @meloshots)

A photo posted by @maraakil on Aug 6, 2015 at 10:29pm PDT

With all of the couple’s past (and present!) successes in TV and film (Salim directed “Jumping the Broom” and the re-vamp of “Sparkle” starring Jordin Sparks and Whitney Houston), we’re excited to see how things will shape up with the new productions sure to emerge from their creative minds!

[Variety, Washington Post, Instagram]

By –Liz Cook