Black-owned and Black-targeted media leaders are stepping up their campaign to convince major advertisers to boost spending on companies like theirs. Byron Allen, founder, founder, chairman and CEO of Allen Media Group, will join Kathy Haley, co-founder and publisher of TVNewsCheck, for an in depth and frank conversation about how marketers and their agencies can help bring equity to a marketplace that has long paid lower rates for and minimized spending on Black-owned and Black-targeted media. Join the conversation by registering here for the webinar, set for Wednesday, Jan. 25 at 1 p.m. ET
Studio Execs: Streaming Won’t Kill Syndication
Executives expect a quiet ’23 for the syndication market but insist that streaming isn’t hastening its demise altogether. Audiences and advertisers are still hanging in, though programming budgets may need to be right sized under pressure from fragmentation.
Byron Allen: I’m Here To ‘Address The Trade Deficit’ For Black America
Byron Allen, founder, chairman and CEO of Allen Media Group and Entertainment Studios, is unyielding in his efforts to get corporate America to spend 15% of its ad budgets on Black-owned media and redress generations of inequity, including a yawning absence of minority-owned media. “America should not be proud of the fact in 2022 you are looking at the one and only Black person in America that owns Big Four network affiliates,” he says.
Storm of Suspicion, Weather Gone Viral, S.O.S. How to Survive and Top 10 are now cleared by station groups Fox, Scripps, Nexstar, Meredith, Gray, CBS, Hearst, Cox Media Group, Sunbeam Television, Hubbard Broadcasting, Tegna, Graham Media and more.
Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios has ordered We the People With Judge Lauren Lake, a daily/strip one-hour syndicated court series that will be available to broadcast TV and global cable, network and digital platforms in fall 2022. The series will be produced and distributed by Allen Media Group/Entertainment Studios.
Exclusives
Entertainment Studios today elevated Patricia Wilson to executive vice president of its television network, JusticeCentral.TV. Wilson joined Entertainment Studios in 2010 when its first court series, America’s Court with Judge Ross, launched in syndication. In her new position, Wilson will also remain executive producer and showrunner for all five of the Entertainment Studios/Allen Media Group court series currently in production: America’s Court with Judge […]
Allen Media Group division Entertainment Studios Television today announced the launch of three new original series from The Weather Channel for broadcast syndication’s 2021 season: Highway Thru Hell, SOS: How To Survive and Top 10. Highway Thru Hell is an hour-long weekday strip, whereas SOS: How To Survive and Top 10 are hour-long weekly series. Highway Thru Hell is the […]
Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group division Entertainment Studios has promoted Brooke Kahn (formerly Brooke Wolfe) to vice president of digital sales and partnerships. Kahn will continue to license Entertainment Studios’ wide theatrical releases to SVOD platforms in addition to developing new partnerships with emerging AVOD services. In addition, Kahn will oversee transactional sales for Allen Media Group’s Freestyle Digital Media digital library […]
Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group division Entertainment Studios said today that seven of its global television networks now receive distribution in the United Arab Emirates on the du telecom platform, from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC). This distribution deal to launch 7 Entertainment Studios Networks channels on the du telecom platform was facilitated by SAWA Rights Management. This first deal between Entertainment Studios Networks and […]
NBC has partnered with Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios and Funny or Die to air a two-hour comedy special, the Feeding America Comedy Festival, on Sunday, May 10, benefiting Feeding America, a hunger-relied organization.
Allen Media Group’s television production division — Entertainment Studios — will distribute a live-streaming comedy event to support and raise money for the hunger-relief organization Feeding America. Co-produced by the Funny Or Die entertainment brand and comedy studio, this comedy event will live-stream on the Allen Media Group television networks Comedy.TV and The Weather Channel, as well as on the […]
The weekly Storm of Suspicion and Weather Gone Viral have now been clear in 95% of the U.S. by television station groups including: Fox, Scripps, Nexstar, Meredith, Gray, Hearst, Cox and more.
Byron Allen’s Allen Media Broadcasting has completed its $305 million purchase of 11 stations in nine markets from USA Television announced last October.
The syndicated game show from Entertainment Studios will return for fall 2021 and fall 2022 in broadcast strip syndication and cable.
The Byron Allen studio orders production of 650 new half-hour episodes for the 2020-21 season.
TVN Focus On Syndication | Weekly Syndication Loses Some Buzz
The XFL’s February debut and Summer Olympics are among factors having a cooling effect on weekly and weekend syndicated programming. Uncertainty around new FCC E/I rules and few available holes for weekly shows aren’t helping either.
Byron Allen’s racial discrimination case against Comcast Corp. heads to the Supreme Court today, where justices will consider Comcast’s argument that the case should hinge on two words: “but for.” Allen filed a $20 billion lawsuit against Comcast in February 2015, arguing that the nation’s largest cable operator was discriminating against his company, Entertainment Studios, by refusing to carry its seven lifestyle cable channels. Comcast maintained the decision was made strictly on business grounds because of the lack of audience demand for Allen’s channels.
Less than a week before Comcast and Department of Justice lawyers will face off against Byron Allen in the Supreme Court in the Entertainment Studios boss’ $20 billion discrimination lawsuit against the NBCUniverisal owner, Rep. Bobby Rush now wants the telecommunications giant brought down to size.
Entertainment Studios today appointed Todd Johnson chief content officer of the company’s digital media platform, The Grio. Johnson is based at the Entertainment Studios New York City offices. Johnson first joined The Grio shortly after it launched in August 2009, as a video journalist and reporter. Johnson’s original video news features included highlighting exceptional talents […]
Days before the new session of the Supreme Court is set to begin, an ever-growing chorus of displeasure with the alliance between Comcast and Donald Trump’s Department of Justice in Byron Allen’s $20 billion battle with the NBCUniversal owner grew even louder and potentially more presidential.
Entertainment Studios has hired Caleb Ward as director of acquisitions for Freestyle Digital Media, the digital content distribution unit of its feature film distribution company Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures, effective immediately. Ward reports directly to Chris Charalambous, head of acquisitions for Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures and Freestyle Digital Media. He will oversee acquisitions for Freestyle Digital Media, targeting both theatrical releases […]
Entertainment Studios today announced the acquisition of the SeriesFest 2017 Best Drama Pilot-winner Up North for global distribution. Entertainment Studios will finance and distribute eight one-hour episodes of the gritty drama series to launch the first season. Up North first made headlines in 2017 when it picked up four awards at the SeriesFest television festival — Best […]
Entertainment Studios is launching what it says is the first Spanish language weather streaming service: The Weather Channel en Español. The Weather Channel en Español will debut in the first quarter of 2020 with the full resources of The Weather and will feature Spanish-speaking weather reporters and show hosts throughout the day on weekdays and weekends, with the […]
An appeals court has again denied Charter’s effort to dismiss the claim by Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios that the cable operator’s “refusal” to enter into a carriage contract with the programmer was racially motivated. The case now proceeds to trial unless it is settled beforehand.
The Weather Channel is a locomotive in Entertainment Studios’ portfolio of businesses generating sizable cash-flow profit, enlarging entrée to advertisers because of its heft and, in what is often unappreciated by outsiders, serving as a media-technology engine. To keep the Weather Channel cable network relevant in an era when information is readily available online and via personal devices, the linear basic cable network jazzes up its presentation with flashy media tech.
Entertainment Studios is launching Trending Funny in broadcast syndication for fall 2020. Trending Funny is a daily one-hour comedy talk show hosted by a panel of comedians and features celebrity guests with strong social media followings. The panel of comedians and the celebrity guests discuss the current state of pop culture in addition to what […]
Entertainment Studios (ES) announced its 42nd television series: The World’s Funniest Weather. It is executive produced by veteran television writer/producer Scott Satin, the executive producer of the NBC clip show Most Outrageous Moments. Satin’s other credits include the current ES comedy game show Funny You Should Ask, NBC’s Meet My Folks, Who Wants to Marry My Dad, Most […]
Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios named Amy Muhlstock VP of portfolio advertising sales. She will be responsible for managing the portfolio ad sales group, which represents Entertainment Studios’ broadcast syndicated programming, as well as the eight Entertainment Studios Networks, including The Weather Channel, as well as the streaming service Local Now. Prior to this role, Muhlstock […]
Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios/Allen Media, on Wednesday named Matt Anderson vice president of distribution. He will now be responsible for distribution efforts of the integrated Entertainment Studios Networks and Weather Group and its portfolio of cable, satellite, telecommunications and OTT distribution platforms. He will oversee affiliate network distribution, carriage negotiation, sales management, marketing, local ad […]
Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios has appointed Ronnie Ng chief financial officer and head of corporate development. Ng will work out of the Entertainment Studios headquarters in Los Angeles. Last month, Entertainment Studios announced it had secured $500 million in credit facilities for general business purposes: productions, co-productions, and acquisitions. In his new position, Ng will manage corporate finances, strategic investments, […]
Owner Byron Allen says this will allow it to “make large-scale acquisitions, which is a major part of our strategy going forward.”
Entertainment Studios on Wednesday announced an additional two-season order of its freshman comedy game show Funny You Should Ask, through the 2020-21 season. Entertainment Studios will produce a total of 520 episodes through the end of the fourth season. Hosted by Jon Kelley, Funny You Should Ask is a daily half-hour strip featuring a panel of comedians who […]
The entertainer-executive is ambitiously, if a bit improbably, staking out a place in the prestige movie season. For audiences who know Allen from his days as a family-friendly comic and TV host in the 1980s, this Captain of Industry-era of his career might seem a little disorienting. But, to him, it’s been decades in the making.
