Tyler Perry and Byron Allen are interested in BET

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https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/tyl...%20the%20asset.

Media moguls Tyler Perry and Byron Allen are vying to purchase a majority stake of BET Media Group amid reports that owner Paramount Global is exploring a sale of the asset.

[Hawkee]

Ever since he became well-known as a famous playwright with the Madea plays Tyler Perry turned himself into a huge household name and when some of his plays became transformed into Hollywood movies Tyler Perry also became a well-known name in Hollywood because his movies are huge successes. And if it wasn't for the Madea plays we wouldn't have successful movies like Madea's Family Reunion The Movie Why Did I Get Married Meet The Browns Daddy's Little Girls The Family That Preys and other movies. And based on those movies alone made Tyler Perry one of the top movie directors in the world and not only that Tyler branched out into TV shows and sitcoms starting with House Of Payne and other shows. I wouldn't be surprised if he decides to go ahead and buy BET along with Byron Allen and Tyler Perry will become the new president of BET and make Byron Allen the vice-president of BET and it will be renamed Tyler Perry Network known by the initials TPN because if you watch BET you'll notice that a lot of Tyler Perry movies are played a lot on there and it seems that BET gains an audience from Tyler Perry a lot and now that he has created original dramas and sitcoms Tyler Perry now wants to finally become king of BET and own the network
Bestie

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Group Black Emerges as 3rd Potential Buyer for BET After Tyler Perry and Byron Allen

Group Black, a Black-owned, Miami-based media company, has expressed interest in buying a majority share in BET Media Group, the New York Times reported on Friday.

The company was founded in 2021 by Travis Montaque, Richelieu Dennis and Bonin Bough and recently put in a bid of $400 million for Vice Media. According to the Times, Group Black is teaming up with CVC Capital Partners, a private-equity firm based in Luxembourg, as well as prominent Black business people and artists for the BET deal.

As TheWrap reported on Monday, Tyler Perry and Byron Allen are also interested in buying BET from Paramount Global, although talks are still in the early stages, and Paramount may decide not to sell ownership of BET Media Group, which includes VH1.

BET was launched in 1980 by founder Robert Johnson as a channel specifically catered to African-American audiences. Paramount acquired BET in 2000 for $2.3 billion. In addition to BET linear channel and VH1, BET Media Group oversees BET+, a joint venture with Perry, and BET Studios, a joint venture with Kenya Barris and Rashida Jones.

According to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, BET’s annual profit — not including BET+ or the network’s studio business — declined from $300 million to $215 million in the last 10 years.

Group Black and BET didn’t immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment. Paramount declined to comment to The Times.

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Byron Allen Offers to Buy Paramount Global for $14 Billion

Byron Allen on Tuesday formally offered to buy Paramount Global for $14 billion.

According to Bloomberg, the offer, Allen is said to have sent to Paramount’s board and senior management by text and email, proposes $28.58 for voting share and $21.53 to buy non-voting shares. The deal would include the assumption of Paramount Global’s debt, bringing the total cost to $30 billion.

“Mr. Byron Allen did submit a bid on behalf of Allen Media Group and its strategic partners to purchase all of Paramount Global’s outstanding shares. We believe this $30 billion offer, which includes debt and equity, is the best solution for all of the Paramount Global shareholders, and the bid should be taken seriously and pursued,” a representative for Allen said in a statement provided to TheWrap.

According to Bloomberg, Allen plans to break the company up by selling Paramount’s film business and some intellectual property along with unspecified real estate holdings. He would keep the company’s television properties as well as the Paramount+ Streaming service — which prior to the merger of Viacom and Paramount that created Paramount Global, was known as CBS All Access.

In December, Byron Allen offered $3.5 billion to Paramount Global in a renewed attempt to acquire BET, the Black culture-oriented cable company.

Paramount Global began exploring the sale of BET last March, part of an effort to generate cash in support of, among other things, Paramount+. But the company backed away from that plan in August, when it informed bidders the sale wouldn’t generate a significant enough amount of money.

But Allen isn’t the only interested buyer. Shari Redstone, Paramount Global’s non-executive chair, is reportedly in talks to sell either the entire company or her controlling stake through her holding company, National Amusements Inc., to Skydance Media CEO David Ellison and RedBird Capital’s Gerry Cardinale.

Skydance and Redbird have signed NDAs with Paramount to explore a possible acquisition, though any potential deal is still far off, according to numerous insiders and media reports.

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has also broached the possibility of merging the two companies, though news of that conversation resulted in a temporary dip in stock price for each of them.

Paramount’s stock price is down 17.4% in the past year and 4.8% year to date. The company faces a complex set of challenges: Advertising revenue tied to its linear businesses is in steep decline, including for CBS and cable channels like MTV and Nickelodeon; its streaming operation continues to operate at a loss, and has more ground to make up than its legacy media rivals’ platforms.

Speculation that Redstone is looking to part ways with Paramount, which has been in the Redstone family since 1987 when National Amusements became majority owner of Viacom, began last month when the company filed a change-of-control and severance plan, also known as a golden parachute, for certain “global senior executives.”