Black-owned media

While it may seem like Black-focused media is at a high these days, the reality is only 4% of all media in the U.S. is Black-owned. Moreover, experts say that biased practices from advertisers make it harder for Black-owned media companies to be profitable. NPR’s Eric Deggans talks to Byron Allen, about his ambitions to grow his media empire, hold advertisers to account, and control the narrative of how Black people are represented in media.

On Tuesday, GroupM announced that an inaugural group of 20 clients has pledged to spend at least 2% of their total annual media budgets in Black-owned media companies through the firm’s recently launched Media Inclusion Initiative. The program is designed to help clients invest in diverse media companies and content creators with an initial focus on Black-owned media.

In the space of just a few weeks, a group of Madison Avenue heavyweights — with names like General Motors, Interpublic Group and WPP — has made public guarantees of ad money for some of the industry’s smaller media outlets, all owned by Black entrepreneurs. Getting these companies to talk about ad spending in public is an amazing feat. For Byron Allen, it’s just a first step.

GroupM is the latest agency to unveil efforts tied to helping to grow and support diverse and Black-owned media companies. The WPP-owned media giant is making a 2% pledge, calling on its clients to invest at least that amount of their annual media spend in diverse and Black-owned media. While GroupM is planning these investments now, the goal is to start these activations in the next 12 to 18 months.

The agency pledge comes as the ad world looks to diversify its media spend in this spring’s ad haggle.

The automaker said it plans to dedicate 4% of its advertising budget to Black-owned media by 2022 and 8% by 2025.