Comedian/Businessman Byron Allen’s media group Allen Media Broadcasting acquired seven television stations from Gray Television for $380 million in cash, part of a divestiture related to Gray’s purchase earlier this year of Quincy Media.
The deal expands Allen Media’s portfolio to 23 ABC-NBC-CBS-Fox network affiliate broadcast stations nationwide. It now owns and operates local TV stations in 19 markets, along with owning 12 networks including The Weather Channel and the free-streaming service Local Now.
Gray’s acquisition of Quincy and Gray’s sale to Allen will close simultaneously, with regulatory approval now expected by Q3 2021.
“I truly appreciate Gray and Quincy, two of the best broadcast groups in the business, working with us to acquire and transfer these amazing assets, over the past year and a half, we’ve invested close to $1 billion to acquire best-in-class, top-tier broadcast network affiliates. We plan to invest approximately $10 billion to acquire more ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox television stations over the next two years with the goal of being the largest broadcast television group in America.” said Byron Allen
Allen was born in Detroit but grew up in Los Angeles. His interest in show business began during his childhood, when he would accompany his mother, Carolyn Folks, to NBC studios in Burbank where she worked as a publicist. At age 14, Allen put together his first stand-up routine and began appearing on amateur nights at comedy clubs throughout the Los Angeles area. Comedian Jimmie Walker saw Allen’s stand-up act and invited the 14-year-old comedian to join his comedy writing team alongside promising young comedians Jay Leno and David Letterman. At age 18, Allen made his television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. One of his earliest roles was as a regular presenter on the NBC series Real People, joining the cast at the beginning of the second season.
His show Jammin was picked up as Kickin’ It with Byron Allen in 1992, and it ran for more than 21 seasons. Allen’s foray into television production began in Los Angeles in 1993 when he founded Entertainment Studios with the launch of his first series — Entertainers with Byron Allen — a weekly, one-hour series profiling the current stars of film and television.
In 2018, Entertainment Studios acquired The Weather Channel from Comcast.
In 2019, he partnered with Sinclair Broadcast Group in Diamond Holding Group to acquire Fox Sports Networks, which The Walt Disney Company agreed to sell as a condition of its purchase of 21st Century Fox.
In 2020, Allen ended a 5-year campaign against Comcast. After reaching the Supreme Court of the United States, Allen settled a $20 billion legal claim (for racism), achieving carriage agreements for three of his cable channels: Comedy.TV, Recipe.TV, and JusticeCentral.TV.
