Байрон Аллен: от комика до медиа-магната

American businessman and comedian
the Minnesota and Iowa politician

Byron Allen (born Byron Allen Folks on April 22, 1961) is an American businessman, film and television producer, and comedian. He is the founder of the U. S. media company Entertainment Studios, which has interests in television production, broadcasting, film production, and digital media. Born in Detroit and later moving to Los Angeles, he initially pursued a career in stand up comedy. After an appearance on The Tonight Show, Allen began to expand into television work, including becoming a host for NBC's Real People. In 1993, Allen established what would later become known as Entertainment Studios.

Allen was born in Detroit, growing up there until 1968 when he moved with his mother after her divorce to Los Angeles. 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 night 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. In 1979 at the age of 18, Allen made his television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, becoming the youngest comedian to ever perform on the show; he used the appearance to learn more about the television industry. Following his appearance on The Tonight Show, NBC cast Allen as a reporter for its series Real People—his first role on a network prime time program. hosted the syndicated late night talk show The Byron Allen Show from 1989 to 1992, its first program would be the syndicated talk show Entertainers with Byron Allen, which featured interviews between Allen and celebrities. The interviews were filmed at hotel press junkets for upcoming films, allowing him to produce the show at a relatively low cost by leveraging equipment set up by the studio for use by the media. Allen distributed the program under a bartered model, in which it would be offered to stations at no cost, with revenue sharing on advertising sales. Later in the decade, Entertainment Studios began to pursue various acquisitions, including film distributor Freestyle Releasing, TheGrio, The Weather Channel, an equity stake in Sinclair Broadcast Group's acquisition of the Fox Sports Networks, and broadcast television stations. By October 2022, the company was valued at over $4.5 billion. In February 2022, Allen made a bid to buy the Denver Broncos of the National Football League. Allen was ultimately outbid by a group led by S. Robson Walton. In January 2024, Allen made a $14.3 billion bid for Paramount Global. In April 2023 he had unsuccessfully bid about $18.5 billion for the company per an unnamed source familiar with the situation. Also in 2023, Allen had made an unsuccessful bid of about $3 billion for Paramount’s BET Media Group.

In 2018, Allen was selected for the Bloomberg 50 as one of "the people in business, entertainment, finance, politics, technology and science whose 2018 accomplishments were particularly noteworthy". He was also selected for the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs at the Goldman Sachs Builders & Innovators Summit 2018, and he was honored by The Salvation Army and the Los Angeles Metropolitan advisory board at the Salvation Army's 11th annual Christmas Kettle luncheon. In January 2019, Allen was a recipient of National Association of Television Program Executives's 16th Annual Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Awards, presented during the annual NATPE Miami Marketplace & Conference. Allen received the 2019 Whitney Young Award at the 46th annual Los Angeles Urban League Awards dinner. In February 2023, the African American Student Union of the Harvard Business School presented Allen with its inaugural "Legendary Honor".

Allen married TV producer Jennifer Lucas in 2007. The couple have three children. Allen is on the Motion Picture & Television Fund Board of Governors. Allen has residences in Aspen, Maui, Los Angeles, and New York City. In 2022, he bought a two home compound in Beverly Hills, California from Jeffrey Skoll for $22 million, and a mansion in Malibu, California, previously owned by Tamara Gustavson for $100 million.