BET has responded to reports that it’s pulling the plug on its flagship late night gabfest, The Mo’Nique Show….The oft-controversial network is choosing another term for the sudden move: “Production hiatus.”

Word that the Oscar-winning comedienne had been sent packing over at Black Entertainment Television first hit the curb when The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Rodney Ho published the cancellation rumor in his Wednesday column.

“At about 1:30 p.m., I called Rodney Perry, who was Mo’Nique’s sidekick on the show. He said he was running into a meeting and didn’t answer my question. While I was at lunch over at the mall court, at 1:40 p.m. EST, he texted me: ‘I was told indefinite hiatus.’ That’s a euphemism for canceled…” Ho wrote. “This didn’t appear to be an issue of ratings. I didn’t have time to do an entire season’s check on ratings so I sampled four weeks in April, 2011 vs. April 2010. Ratings from April 5 to April 29, 2010 averaged 615,000 viewers a night. From April 4 to April 28, 2011, her show averaged 586,000. That’s only a five percent drop,” the columnist added.

It didn’t take long for BET to shoot back with a statement of its own:

“’The Mo’Nique Show’ will be on production hiatus beginning in the Fall,” network spokesperson Kobe Swanson says. “However, new episodes of the show will continue to air throughout the summer. Mo’Nique Hicks and ‘The Mo’Nique Show’ are important to the BET Networks family and we look forward to continuing our relationship with her.”

Are you sorry to see Mo go?

She’s already the daughter of a millionaire, but at just 12, Reginae Carter, is already “Stuntin’ Like Her Daddy” and pocketing some serious guap of her own.

TMZ.com has uncovered documents that show just how much the preteen daughter of rap star Lil Wayne and his ex-wife Antonia “Toya” Carter is making to appear on Toya: A Family Affair, the Tiny & Toya BET spinoff she’ll appear on alongside her mom later this year. The production company behind the show is legally obligated to file a minor’s contract with Los Angeles County Superior court so Reginae can get paid for her work on the show.

According to the contract, Reginae will earn $2,000 an episode, plus expenses. With an 11 episode guarantee already on tap for the first season, she’s expected to bring home a salary of $22,000. Reginae will also received a five percent raise for every additional season she is on the show. She even has an account set up so the money she makes will be kept safe until she turns 18, in 2016. Per Reginae’s contract, the show must provide air transportation if she’s required to travel more than 75 miles from her home.

The New York City Radio World is mourning the loss of one of its own. Urban radio and TV personality DJ Megatron, a regular fixture as a segment host on BET’s 106 & Park since 2006, was shot and killed near his Staten Island, New York home early Sunday in what police suspect was a random robbery gone wrong.

Megatron, whose real name was Corey McGriff, was fatally wounded in the stomach while heading to a store around 2 AM. NYPD officials say the 32-year-old rising hip hop star was found dead with a single gunshot wound. Police were called when a neighbor heard the gun fire and called 911. By the time paramedics arrived, Megatron was dead. He was found on the sidewalk, his fitted baseball cap at his side.

Rising to the on-air ranks after starting as an intern, DJ Megatron began his career at New York’s WKRS-FM, better known as Kiss FM, where deejays remembered him on the air and online Sunday. He’d also worked at what was then Boston’s Hot 97.7, or WBOT-FM, and at Philadelphia’s The Beat, or WPHI-FM, according to a bio on his MySpace page. In recent years, he’s appeared on 106, where his “What’s Good” spots took him onto the streets to ask bystanders about topics ranging from sports to “The Five Elements of Hip-Hop.”

McGriff, also beloved around the Osgood Avenue community where he grew up, had also appeared in a number of movies, including 2005′s State Property 2, starring rappers Beanie Sigel and Noreaga.

“Detectives are telling us they think it was a random act and whoever shot him had no idea who he was. They seem to think it was robbery. He probably had one of the best personalities around . super-positive, happy all the time,” says Justin Kirkland, who was Megatron’s manager.

His family say he had no enemies and they’re struggled to understand why anyone may have attacked the well-liked jock known for his upbeat, amiable attitude.

“He was a great kid. He loved playing sports and was quarterback at college. He was also a really good athlete,” according to the DJ’s griefstricken father. “I remember when he was in 10th grade he called me and said, ‘Dad, I came 36th in the country in the 200 metres.’ I joked: ‘Can’t you do better than that?!’ Then I congratulated him. I was so proud. He loved watching Fresh Prince of Bel Air as a boy, that’s where he got his first taste of music.”

McGriff, 32, leaves behind three children aged 11, four, and nine-months.

The Game’s back in a big way.

The show, which was axed by The CW nearly two years ago, returned from the Television Graveyard for a fourth season on new home BET Tuesday night, setting a ratings record for the network. Approximately 7.7 million viewers tuned in for the return of Melanie, Derwin, and the rest of the affiliates of the San Diego Sabers. The numbers make The Game the No. 1 original telecast on BET and No. 2 of all-time, just behind the 2009 BET Awards — which had 10.2 million viewers and took place three days after the death of Michael Jackson.

In a move that’s almost unheard of in network TV, BET decided to breathe new life into The Game after the repeats of the series were a ratings smash. (We sure wish someone would try that with Half & Half!) While BET hasn’t announced a fifth season, the show is helping the network change its image; which previously consisted of something we like to call The Three T’s: Tiny, Toya, and Tomfoolery. The show is the first scripted series for BET, which also premiered its own original show, Let’s Stay Together. About 4.4 million viewers tuned in for that one.

“We’re coming out hitting hard,” says Game executive producer Salim Akil. “We really hope it opens BET up to more voices, to more people being able to come in and pitch shows and have a variety of different scripted shows on the network. BET has been absolutely top-notch in the way that they’ve been handling this, from allowing us to be creatively free … to the advertising to now having the cast at TCA,” continued Akil, referring to the current Television Critics Association gathering in Pasadena.

“All of the things that we didn’t get over there at CW, we’re getting at BET.”

Call it Selita’s Big Break!

We hear Caribbean-born Victoria’s Secret supermodel has been tipped to host an entertainment/lifestyle-themed series headed to BET in early 2011.

BET Networks is putting the finishing touches on a star-studded TV special planned in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the network’s popular music video countdown series 106 & Park.

The longrunning show will mark the milestone with a live two-hour special — featuring previous hosts AJ & Free, Tigger & Julissa, and present hosts Terrence Jenkins and Rocsi Diaz — scheduled for Oct. 6.

On Oct. 5, the network is expected to air a special titled 106 & Park: 10 Years & Counting, a reunion featuring hosts past and present sharing their insight and experiences. The big two-hour celebration will air the following day, complete with celebrity performances.

“Who would have thought that this little show that began September 11, 2000, with nervous producers and even more nervous first time hosts would turn into this highly successful, influential, game-changing daily energetic program about, from and to youth culture?” says BET’s President of Music Programming and Specials, Stephen G. Hill. “We are proud to reflect and represent every day for our incredible audience that still, after over 2,500 episodes, still fuels the show for this show was built and still rests on the BET audience.”

Two years after exiting her eight-season run as lawyer-turned-restauranteur Joan Clayton on TV’s Girlfriends, Tracee Ellis Ross will be returning to the tube in Reed Between The Lines, a new half-hour comedy greenlit by BET.

In the new show, Ross plays Dr. Carla Reed, a busy psychiatrist, wife, and mother, who’s strug­gling to balance career and family.

Ross will also produce, along side Arthur Har ris and Kel lie Grif fin, the former head-writer for Tyler Perry’s House of Payne. Production on the pilot is slated to start in Atlanta on Aug. 11, just in time for Reed to hit the airwaves this fall.

In the meantime, Ellis Ross is lighting up the stage in the Off-Broadway play, Love Loss and What I Wore