byron allen
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The media company of mogul Byron Allen has begun a round of significant layoffs, beginning first with The Weather Channel and The Grio.
According to reports, the privately held media group of Byron Allen has initiated a round of layoffs at two of its properties, The Weather Channel and The Grio. In a statement released on Thursday (May 2), the firm said: “Allen Media Group is making strategic changes to better position the company for growth that will result in expense and workforce reductions across all divisions” before continuing to state that the group will “continue to perform well and in many areas our revenue growth has greatly outpaced the market. We are aligning these changes to drive future business opportunities and support our growth strategies in our rapidly evolving industry.”
The precise number of people laid off at The Weather Channel has not been revealed, but it did include station veterans such as on-air meteorologist Mike Seidel, who had been at the station dating back to 1992. “I’ve done over 25,000 live shots during my tenure at TWC, which include all of the broadcast and cable news networks,” Seidel said of his 32-year run. Another senior producer, Trish Landers Ragdale, shared the news of her departure on social media. “After 14 years at The Weather Channel, I had to say goodbye. Definitely not by choice and not expected. At its best and at its worst, I was truly proud to wear the TWC logo,” Ragdale said in the Reels video. Allen Media Group acquired The Weather Channel back in 2018 for a reported $300 million.
These layoffs come days after layoffs occurred at The Grio, affecting the video production staff and the podcast team at the network with managing editor Christy Oglesby also reportedly being laid off according to a source. TheGrio was acquired by Allen Media Group in 2016 and is considered the largest Black newsroom in the nation. Allen reached a deal with Charter Communications in March to have the owner of Spectrum carry The Grio and other offerings under its umbrella on their cable television packages. Observers note that Allen might be positioning himself for more acquisitions in the future. The mogul, who has a net worth of $735 million, previously submitted a bid of $30 billion for Paramount Global and had also expressed interest in obtaining a stake in CNN and buying BET Media Group.
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Byron Allen is expressing his interest in buying BET again to Paramount, this time raising his bid to $3.5 billion.
According to Variety, on Wednesday (Dec. 20), the media mogul Byron Allen emailed the senior executives of Paramount Global to voice his interest in acquiring the BET Media Group. The media group comprises the BET cable network, VH1, streaming service BET+, and BET Media Studios. The bid submitted on behalf of the Allen Media Group is $3.5 billion, a substantial increase from Allen’s previous bid of $2.7 billion in March.
“You are pursuing an inside sale at a below-market price with management that will not yield the highest price for the stockholders,” the email reportedly read. “We believe it would be an egregious breach of fiduciary duty by the Paramount Global management team and board of directors if BET is sold for anything less than the highest price, particularly, in order to provide a sweetheart deal to an insider at the expense of public shareholders.” Representatives at both Paramount Global and the Allen Media Group declined to comment when contacted by the press.
Allen already has competition in this latest bid, as word has it that Chinh Chu, a former Blackstone executive and head of CC Partners along with BET CEO Scott Mills have submitted their own reported bids of $2 billion. When Paramount Global first floated the prospect of BET being for sale in March, other interested parties included Sean “Diddy” Combs, Shaquille O’Neal, 50 Cent, and Tyler Perry. Paramount halted that process in August, stating that “a sale wouldn’t result in any meaningful deleveraging of its balance sheet.”
Byron Allen has made his media group a formidable independent player in the media industry, with 28 broadcast stations affiliated with the Big Four networks of ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox as well as ownership of The Weather Channel in addition to 11 other cable networks. News of the offer surfaced as word broke out that the CEO of Paramount Global met with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav to begin talks about the two media giants merging. The news sent shockwaves throughout the public, as it would mark another major consolidation in the last three years.
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In a watershed moment, it appears that both Tyler Perry and Byron Allen are competing to acquire the majority of BET Media Group.
According to reports, Perry has been involved in conversations with executives at Paramount Global with the aim of acquiring a majority stake in the BET Media Group. The operation includes BET and VH1 as well as streaming network BET + and the BET Studios production company. Allen, who is the founder and head of the Allen Media Group, has publicly acknowledged through a spokesperson that he was “interested in buying BET, and he will be pursuing the acquisition of the network.” Representatives for Perry and Paramount Global didn’t respond to press inquiries about the situation.
The 53-year-old Perry enjoys a good relationship with Paramount and BET dating back to 2005 when the latter network funded his first motion picture, Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Since then, he has been in partnership with Paramount on a long-term film deal that began in 2017. The two entities entered into a television partnership deal in May 2020. Both have been lucrative ventures, with Perry releasing several series to popular acclaim including “House of Payne,” “Sisters,” “Ruthless”, and “The Oval”
on BET and BET+.
The 61-year-old Allen and his company have been on a monumental path within the last couple of years, recently acquiring the Black News Channel for $11 million last year and lifting it out of bankruptcy. Allen’s company has also acquired The Weather Channel along with 27 ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox affiliate stations within the past three years with an investment price of $1 billion. Digital outlets TheGrio and HBCU Go are also under the Allen Media Company umbrella.
News of Paramount Global’s potential sale of the BET Media Group was announced this past Monday in an article from the Wall Street Journal. Reports are that the group is looking to make the move to shore up a planned initiative to rebrand the Showtime linear and streaming networks into its own Paramount + network, which was announced earlier this year.
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