Comedian Whitney Cummings interviews guests (friends, comics, celebs, experts, weirdos) every week. Known for her standup comedy specials for HBO and Netflix, Comedy Central Roasts, and multiple television series and films, Whitney has a lot of questions for a lot of different kinds of people. She also has opinions. And a robot. The series has featured the likes of David Oyelowo, Paris Hilton, Amanda Knox, Dr. David Sinclair, and Dave Grohl. Subscribe to hear interviews that are always interesting and never too long.
In this week’s episode of the Good for You podcast, GOOD FOR YOU UNIVERSITY edition Whitney interviews her hero, media mogul Byron Allen, and does not interrupt AT ALL. Byron tells us how to make it in business (he bought the weather channel for $300 million), and how to solve most problems.
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.
Cummings launched Good For You two years ago, interviewing guests, friends, comics, celebrities, experts, and weirdos every week.
In addition to podcasting, Cummings is known for creating and starring in the NBC series Whitney, she also co-created the Emmy-nominated series 2 Broke Girls, has released four stand-up specials, and is currently on her Touch Me stand-up tour spanning 50 cities.
Whitney Cummings is a name synonymous with innovation and pushing the boundaries on what a medium can be. She’s done this throughout her career and brought this signature approach when she launched Good For You, where she completely reimagined the celebrity interview podcast format.
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