Media mogul Byron Allen has become a champion for change, fighting to break barriers with a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against Comcast and Charter Communications for not distributing his networks.
READ MORE: WATCH: The must-see message for Black America about Byron Allen’s multi-billion dollar lawsuit
The CEO of Entertainment Studios sat down with The Breakfast Club’s Charlamagne Tha God, Angela Yee and DJ Envy, for a captivating conversation about his rise from bankruptcy to a billionaire. Within the interview he also pays homage to his single mother, who he credits for paving the way for his foray into entertainment.
The Detroit native said it was his 17-year-old single mother, who first taught him the art of being persistent. This discipline is something that he has found to come in handy in his fight for equality. A child born during the civil rights, his mother moved the family from Detroit to L.A. in 1968, during the tumultuous aftermath of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.‘s death.
“I’ll be the first to say if the mothers succeed, so will the children,” Allen acknowledges. “And if mothers fail, most likely, so will the children.”
The mogul continued talking about his mother, and how her venture into entertainment inspired him.
“…my mother was at UCLA and getting her master’s degree in cinema TV production, she went to NBC and said, ‘Can I get a job?’ and they said, ‘No.’,” Allen reflects. “And her persistence really paid off. She said she asked a very important question, and she asked a question that changed our lives. She asked, ‘Do you have an internship?’ And they said, ‘No.’ And then she went to the next question. ‘Will you start one with me?’ And they said ‘Yes.’.”
That type of tenacity Allen said was a “game changer.” It set the wheels in motion to open doors for him, as his mother navigated her way through various jobs at NBC. And since childcare wasn’t an option, he got a front seat to seeing rising stars take center stage.
“I would just watch Johnny Carson do The Tonight Show, and I watch Red Fox do Sanford and Son… and Richard Pryor do his specials and Freddie Prinze do Chico and the Man. And then I would go and watch an unknown sportscaster do the local news, Bryant Gumbel.”
Allen learned about the power dynamics from behind the scenes, and his mother’s refusal to accept “no” was catalyst that help him carve out a path to becoming the executive who now owns the Weather Channel and TheGrio. It was a rough road pitted with rejection, but his focus seems to be laser sharp.
“I started my company from my dining room table in 93, and I did a television special making a bunch of funny friends. I remember that.” Allen said.
“So weekly, one hour show called Entertainers would buy or now. Yes. And I started I sat in my dining room table when I called all thirteen hundred television stations and asked them to carry the show for free. And on average, they all told me no about 50 times,” he admits.
“And literally, I sat in my dining room table from sunup to sundown and I got about fifty thousand nos. And after a year of doing that, I was able to squeeze out about one hundred and fifty yeses. And I got a station, a TV station in every market from New York to Waterloo Island. Right. And so that was my lineup. Now, Tribune, it said to me, and if you get 75 percent of the country, we will sell your commercial time. Because I said to the TV stations, there was 14 minutes of commercial time. I’ll keep seven minutes. You keep seven minutes. I’ll sell my seven minutes to national advertisers, you, local TV station, you sell your seven minutes to local advertisers. Right. You sell it to local banks, car dealers, supermarkets. I’ll sell my seven minutes to McDonald’s and Pepsi, and Johnson and Johnson and General Motors. You sell yours to the local market.”
Allen said he poured lots of sweat equity into doing the work. And he did, “Everything myself. It is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
More poetic is that Allen rose to become a force in the entertainment industry that has shaken several major media conglomerates to the core.
Allen alleges the Comcast and Charter Communications networks were specifically in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which prohibits racial discrimination in contracting, which he believes is broadening the divide for Blacks.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the $20 billion dollar case in November, and if Allen wins it would be a major victory for Black-owned companies and Black media.
In fact, the power of empowering our own and representation is one reason Allen says he bought TheGrio.
“I felt it was important than buying TheGrio to own, you know, our voice, to own our position in the marketplace, to really control our narrative, you know, with. So, you know, it’s very important to me because when my children were born, I had a guy say to me, you know, a white guy says to me, why is it important that you have Black ownership?”
“You know, what’s wrong with Black targeted? Is there a lot of Black faces? And I said, I’m glad you asked me that question. You know, let me tell you why I bought TheGrio, and why I bought a movie distribution company, why I own 10 cable networks. Let me ask you something. As a white man who has children. Are you comfortable with me controlling the images of your daughters and how they are produced and how they’re depicted and how they grow up looking at themselves? Are you cool with me having 100 percent control over how your white daughter sees herself? And he said no. And I said, great. I said, I expected you to answer the question that way. Now understand me as a Black man and my Black daughters. Now that. They’re here. I’m going to take a seat at the table and I’m going to control how they’re produced and how they’re depicted and how they grow up and how they see themselves. Because at this moment in my life, nothing is more important to me than them.”
The interview struck a chord with Charlamagne Tha God, who rated it as one of his top 3 conversations of the year.
Allen has undeniably become a formidable voice in a space that has tried to silence him. Check out the full interview here.
The post Byron Allen sits with ‘The Breakfast Club’ to talk business and hard work appeared first on theGrio.
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