Byron Allen at Code 2023

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Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Kara Swisher. Today, we've got a bonus episode for you, a fascinating conversation from Code 2023 with CNBC's Julia Boorstin and media mogul Byron Allen. You'll hear him discuss his latest offer to Disney, a controversy with McDonald's, and much more. It's a must-listen.

Julia Boorstin: Hello, everyone. I'm so happy to be back here for day two of the new Code Conference, and I'm very excited to interview Byron Allen. He's the founder, CEO, and chairman of Allen Media Group, which just had its 30-year anniversary. And this company is actually one of the largest privately held media companies in the country. A fun fact about Byron is he started his career at 18 years old on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show back in 1979. So he's originally an entertainer, a comedian, so may have some thoughts on whether or not AI can be funny, which is something we were talking about backstage. But more notably, he's just recently put together a bid to buy ABC and some other networks from Disney. And he currently owns the Weather Channel and a whole basket of local affiliates, 27 local broadcast stations in 21 markets. So we're going to be talking about the future of content, media, and much more. Please welcome Byron out.

Byron Allen: All right. Come on now. Come on now. Wake up. Wake up. Let's wake up. Come on now. Let's get it going. Thank you. Oh, my God. Do not act like you're at a tax convention. You guys looking at me like, okay, how many charts and graphs is he going to show us? All right. We're going to have some fun. You ready to have some fun? Act like it. Tell your face now. Come on. Julia, how are you doing?

Julia Boorstin: I'm good, Byron. Miss Princeton, ladies and gentlemen. Miss Princeton here. She's smart.

Byron Allen: So I originally invited Byron to come speak because I was really interested in his ownership of the Weather Channel and also the way you are using AI and your local news app. But then you made big headlines when you announced you wanted to pay $10 billion for ABC Networks, ABC, eight local stations, National Geographic, and the FX channels. Why are you interested in making a purchase and why this price point to buy that basket of channels from Disney?

Byron Allen: Well, first, can I borrow $10 billion from somebody? Let's get that out of the way. Yeah, and talk about AI. I'm not real. I am AI. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Listen, I think broadcast television and linear television, I think it's a great business. It's a phenomenal business. I bought the Weather Channel in 2018 from a couple of private equity firms. And then they were saying, hey, take it, take it, and gave us a great price. Because they were constantly talking about the decline and the demise of linear television. And I said, no, I think you're reading it wrong. Since then, we've pushed up the top line revenue. We've pushed up the EBITDA. And we haven't even started. The Weather Channel has been a phenomenal acquisition for us. Phenomenal. And climate change and global warming is very real. And every day at the top of the news, weather is the number one or number two story. And it's going to continue to be. What people are not understanding is that it is the greatest threat to human beings, climate change and global warming. We're losing over five million people per year to climate change and global warming. We're at the point where climate change and global warming will take out more human beings than all the wars combined. Okay? So when I took over the Weather Channel, I noticed we weren't talking a lot about climate change and global warming. And then I said, what's up? How come we're not talking about it? They said, well, we don't want to offend certain people. I said, who? They said, well, the president. I go, what are you talking about? They said, well, he says it doesn't exist. So we don't want to offend anybody by saying it exists when he says it doesn't. I said, hold up, hold up, hold up. You're joking, right? And I'm like, no. And you know, me as a comedian, my whole thing is I'm unfiltered. I'm about the truth. I'm always about the truth. You may not like what I'm going to say, but I'm going to tell you the truth. So I said, listen up, get all my scientists into a room. And I got all my scientists into a room. And I said, by a show of hands, please raise your hands if climate change and global warming is real and if it's the greatest threat that humankind are facing today. Without exception, they all raise their hands. It's real and it is an unbelievable threat. And I said, from this moment on, I don't care who we offend, we're going to tell the American people the truth. And we're going to educate them on what it means and how it's impacting us and how we're going to protect and save their lives and their loved ones. So that was really it. So it's a phenomenal business. ABC is great. I love the big four network affiliate business. I've invested a little over a billion dollars buying ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox affiliates over the last three or four years. Local news matters. Sports matters. That's the true religion of America. NFL football. We worship it as a country. It's the highest rated content. and it takes up 98 of the top 100 television shows of the year. It's not going anywhere. I've invested billions of dollars on a simple notion that we're always going to want local news and sports. And that has been a phenomenal bet for me so far. But Disney is exploring selling these networks because they believe the linear television business is challenged. As they talk about taking ESPN direct-to-consumer, We see more and more the fragmentation of the TV bundle. What's the plan for these assets? And how are you going to get $10 billion? You joked about it, but you do have to borrow quite a bit of money to make this happen.

Julia Boorstin: Well, first of all, capital is not an issue. I have access to plenty of capital. Capital is not the commodity. There's trillions of dollars out there looking for a safe place to invest and get it back with a return. We have more than enough capital. And do you have a specific plan in place to finance this deal? Oh, absolutely. The capital is not the problem. The real commodity, Julia, is certainty of close, approval of the deal. That's the real commodity. Not too many people can get that deal approved. That's the hard part. That's the magic trick. The money, that's easy. Getting the deal approved, good luck. Listen, tech companies can't do it. Tech companies at this point with this administration, they're trying to figure out how to break them up, how to make them smaller. A tech company can't even buy a lemonade stand today. And if they think they can go buy something of this scale, they're ill-advised. I think Washington, D.C. has made it very clear they're not interested in private equity and hedge funds buying this type of asset, a national news service, and operating it. Now, they can certainly invest with an owner-operator like me, but to own and operate it, D.C. is not, how should I say it? They're not impressed with the way private equity and hedge funds handled newspapers and accelerated their demise. So good luck going in and buying platforms that deliver 80 percent of the news to America. So I don't see private equity getting in there and doing it without someone like me. I don't see tech companies. They need to stay off the radar. That would just be my friendly advice to them. And other big media companies can do it because they maxed out. You can only own 39 of the country in the way of big television stations. So I'm the prettiest girl at the dance. Let's just be honest. I'm the best looking thing you ever going to see this year. So from what I understand, the conversations with Disney are still very preliminary. They're still talking to a lot of other players. Can you give us an update on where things stand now or what you think a potential timeline would be, not just for the financing, but also to close this kind of a deal?

Byron Allen: I mean, here's what happened. I've been stalking ABC for a while, going back years. And it showed up on my radar when WJLA came up for sale, the ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C. and when, you know, I like to watch other players in the game and I like to watch how they move and that's how I make my game better. And I was like, you know what? You're ABC network and you didn't go through the wall to buy the ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C., the nation's capital. Okay, you're not committed to this space of big four network affiliates. Now, by law, they can go to 39% of the country, their footprint. It. Most are. CBS, NBC, Fox, you name it. They stopped at 22%. That said to me, I don't think you're in love with this space. So every time, and Bob Iger and I, we go way back. I was on a show called Real People, and he was a young executive at ABC, and Bob and I ended up parents at school together, so we used to see each other at Daddy Drop-Off, and, you know, hey, Bob, and in the parking like you sell me those stations. So poor Bob, I've been on his case for years. Like, come on, Bob, what you doing, man? Let go of those things. And then I watched this whole process. Okay, now we're going through this transition where these 100-year-old legacy companies are having to reinvent themselves, where they're now, you're watching these companies trying to build a new airplane midair while they're flying their old airplane in a publicly traded entity. This is a very challenging thing to accomplish. Now, Bob is excellent at what he does. He's phenomenal. He's the best person to do it. But whoa, they're asking him to do something that has not occurred in 100 years. So I said, OK, I'm, you know, I'm smelling some weakness. And this is when I, this is when I enter. And then when he came on CNBC and said, I see a scenario where linear networks are not core, I immediately texted him and said, I'm your man. Let's get it done. And then he, he texted me back and he just said, I'm not ready. And then Nextstar was at a conference in Bank of America and said, well, we're having conversations. And I'm like, well, don't, you better stop talking to my girl. This is my girl here. You know? And I said, boom, let's go. I'm ready to go and I'm real. They know I'm real. They know it's sincere. And what Bob has to do, he's not ready. And he's made that clear. And he's brought in really, and he's really smart. He's brought in smart people, Kevin Mayer, Tom Skaggs. And they have to figure out, I think their biggest challenge, how do you decouple it? How do you pull it out of their ecosystem? Because it's really integrated into everything Disney. And that's the hard part. I think that's what they're going through. But if they do get to that point where they're willing to do it, I'm going to chase it down like a lion chasing down a gazelle. Let's just be clear.

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Byron Allen: But so I want to understand how this all fits into your ecosystem that you're building and what your vision is. You did make an offer for BET. They decided not to sell. They decided not to sell. You were interested in Tegna. What is your plan here for the sort of five-year plan of what you're building here?

Julia Boorstin: I'm building the world's biggest media company, bottom line. And I'm building it to... Private? I mean, it's private. Yeah, I like to stay private. There's a lot of really big media companies out there. Yeah, I like private. I like private because it allows me to be very entrepreneurial. When I started it from my dining room table 30 years ago, I couldn't pay my phone bill. I was calling television stations and they turned off my phone. And I had to go call TV stations and advertisers from a paid phone. And I couldn't find investors. And I just kept smiling and dialing and dialing and smiling. And I put one show on and then another. Next thing you know, we have over 80 shows and we have 12 networks and, you know, on and on and on. I just kept, you know, I just never stopped. It was just like a just never stopped. And we talked about movies in development and you're working on various different shows. But are you going to be consistently focused on this live news, live sports, local piece?

Byron Allen: Yeah. Yeah. Because like, listen, when COVID happened, some of our television stations, you know, We had 90% of the audience watching our local TV stations. They wanted to know what was going on with COVID outside of their front door. So local news is always going to be needed as a matter of survival. Weather will always be needed, and we are always going to want sports. So this is just a simple concept, and I'm building a global platform by going local, and that's the foundation as you build it. We've seen phenomenal results. You know, when I bought the Weather Channel, they said to me at the end of the new owner's presentation, they said, oh, by the way, you own something that's the equivalent of a fully distributed broadcast network that uses artificial intelligence, proprietary software to curate, aggregate and stream super hyper local news, weather, sports and traffic geofence to the user's zip code. And this is local now. Yeah. And I said, whoa. And they went, don't get excited. I said, why not? And they said, because it's losing well over $25 million a year. And you're going to probably want to shut it down. And I said, you know what? I'm very disappointed. I was not clever enough to come up with this, but I am certainly not going to shut it down. And so I personally invested over $125 million of my capital to reposition that asset. And what they were doing at the time, they were trying to get people to pay $4.99 a month for it. And I said, you know what? I don't think Julia wants to pay $4.99 a month. Let's make it free. And right around that time, I'd had dinner with Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix. And I asked Reed, I said, Reed, what keeps you up at night? And he said, YouTube. I said, YouTube? He said, yeah, Byron, if they start offering premium content for free, how do I get people to pay me 14 bucks a month? And I went, boom, got it. And so then when they presented me local now, I said, I'm not shutting it down. I'm going to take it off balance sheet from the rest of my assets. I'm going to carve it out off to the side because it's losing money. I'm going to personally put the money in. And we repositioned the asset and we made it free. And we added over 500 fast channels and over 675 local television stations. They're news. We did a deal with CBS, NBC, PBS. We're on track to have over 1,200 local stations. And I have to tell you, it has been a phenomenal investment. We've seen the revenue go up 35x. And basically, we know that the world's favorite word is free. We made it free. And we're chasing the biggest streamer in the world, which is YouTube, which is doing almost 30 billion a year in advertising. That's local now, curated content, and it's super hyper-local and it's free. And I have to tell you, I could not be happier. And these free ad supported channels are now very much in focus, though for a while, it was all about the ad-free subscription model that Netflix has done. So you mentioned AI. AI is part of the Weather Channel. AI is part of Local Now and the geofencing and the curation of content for each user. But how do you see AI more broadly impacting the media industry, the entertainment industry? We were just talking about the strike. Writers are writing again as of today. Obviously, AI was a sticking point for the writers, continues to be a sticking point in the negotiation for the Screen Actors Guild. Is AI a threat to entertainment creators?

Byron Allen: I don't think it's, well, if it goes unmanaged, I think we have to manage it properly. But if we, like anything else, it's a great tool. It's a phenomenal tool. And it's new to us. And I think we have to really work hard to make sure it doesn't get out of control. And at the end of the day, if we handle it right, we're only going to be better. I mean, we've seen some phenomenal results with AI. And, you know, I think it can be very helpful. And I think it will help us in a lot of areas, a lot of areas where we need help. You know, media needs help. Media is very powerful. It's extremely powerful. You know, it can be weaponized. We've seen it to the point where it is weaponized. It's been weaponized to the point where we have people in this country on January 6th trying to overthrow a country they already control, okay? That's how badly it can be weaponized. Or it can be used to unite us and make us one. And that's what I'm about, using media to make us stronger and to make us one. You're right. My whole mission has been about that. It's not about just building the world's biggest media company. It's about why. For me, I want to achieve that vision, that vision that Coretta Scott King taught me, Martin Luther King's widow. And she said you know they didn't kill my Martin over the I have a dream speech they killed him over the other America speech that he gave in February of '68 and then they killed him two months later and that speech was the other America and where he said there are two Americas one America has access to opportunity education and economic inclusion and the other America doesn't and two Americas will not survive we must achieve one America and when she taught me that I I just said, I'm going to spend the rest of my life in building this phenomenal media company to achieve that and to really help people understand that fact that we're stronger together as opposed to being divided. And for me, that's about, I call it, you know, the five E's, make sure everybody has a great education. Because my mother got pregnant with me when she was 16 and had me 17 days after her 17th birthday. But thank God she's not only beautiful, she's brilliant. She ended up going to UCLA and getting her master's degree in cinema TV production. And she ended up working for free at NBC and could not afford child care. And she took her little boy to work with her and I discovered Johnny Carson and on and on. So I wanna make sure everybody gets equal justice and economic inclusion. And I said, you know, on CNN, we need to stop talking about crime and we need to lean in and fix education and economic inclusion. Crime will go away and environmental protection and empathy, just really lean in and just show the empathy, which my children show, turn that button back on. Stop acting like we don't see the mentally ill, the food insecure, and the homeless. So that's my mission. When people go, what's going on in Byron's head? You don't have to guess, I'll tell you. I'm building media to achieve one America. They're telling me to go to Q&A, but first I have to ask you about something that does not seem to be entirely in line with this sort of inclusive conciliatory tone that you're taking, and that's a strategy of lawsuits. And I'm curious how this fits into your broader strategy. A couple years ago, many years ago, you sued Comcast's parent company, along with Charter. Well, we're buddies now. Now you're buddies. Now you're buddies. Brian and I are good buddies. Yeah. But back then, there was a lawsuit then. And then in 2019, you sued McDonald's for racial discrimination, saying it only spent 0.3% of its ad budget at Black-owned media companies. Suited again in June of this year. An additional $100 million suit alleging it had lied when it promised to increase its media spend to 5% by 2024. So you did come to an agreement with Comcast and Charter in 2015 and 2016 over claims that those companies refused to carry cable channels owned by your company. But I'm curious how this broader approach, why are you suing so many companies here? What's going on?

Byron Allen: It's a great question. So I had to really get the conversation started and I wanted to have a numerical conversation. I felt that was the best way to have the numerical conversation. And in creating One America, what I've always said is the greatest trade deficit in America is the trade deficit between white corporate America and Black America and females and brown America. And you have to close that trade deficit to achieve One America. And I said, I'm going to speak numerically to you. So when I sued the cable industry for $70 billion, when I sued them for $40 billion or whatever it was, I said to them, I said, listen up, guys, here are the numbers. You're spending $70 billion a year licensing cable networks. Black people, Hispanic people, women, Asians, they get zero. That's not right. I'm just the first one to call you on it. And I'm the first one to invest millions and millions of dollars to bring balance to the relationship. We have to have balance. And guess what? We went all the way to the Supreme Court, and at the end of the day, we all got it done. And I just knew it was a tough conversation that I was going to have to go to war with these guys, and we did it. Now, in the case of McDonald's, I just simply said, listen up, guys. You're bringing in $100 billion a year in revenue. $40 billion of it's coming out of the Black and brown community. Out of a billion in advertising, less than $5 million is going to Black-owned media. And what Coretta Scott King taught me, she said, Byron, our greatest weapon is the truth. And if you bring the truth, we will always win. And this is what God wants you to do. So I'm going to always bring the truth. And I'm just going to bring the numbers and say, do you feel these numbers are good? Do you feel these numbers are fair? See, DE and I are not letters you can deposit in a bank. Those are just three letters you can put in alphabet soup. And there isn't a bank in the world where we can deposit excuses. So we can't accept them. We have to have a real, strong, equitable relationship. And I'm just the first person to come along in 300 years to do it. And my mom is very proud. And if my mom is proud, that's all that matters. Nothing but love.

Announcer: Before we go to this last question, I'm going to read a shorter version of the statement that McDonald's sent CNBC. I have the last time you were on CNBC. Yeah, let's hear that statement. Okay. Byron Allen, this is a quote from McDonald's. Byron Allison engaged in a baseless public campaign against McDonald's in an attempt to line his own pockets. McDonald's refuses to be coerced and will not allow Mr. Allen to misuse the legal process and perpetuate untrue narratives at our expense. As he knows all too well, McDonald's is on track to reach our goal for Black-owned marketing investments by the end of 2024. We still have over a year, but the lawsuit is there. Okay. So let's talk about it.

Byron Allen: All right. So So a friend of mine, let me, I'll tell you what got me really involved. A friend of mine started something called HBCU sports. It wasn't even mine. And what he did is he aggregated all of the Black college sports, 107 HBCUs, historically Black colleges and universities. Unbelievable sports, unbelievable athletes. Okay. Over 3,000 sporting events, men and women's basketball, everything. he could not get any support from cable operators and advertisers including McDonald's and I'm like okay if you're not going to lean in and support the education of Black kids in America and I know what education did for my family with my mother being pregnant with me at 16 nobody's betting on a Black teenage girl in 1961 and a Black baby born without civil rights and the only thing that changes that? Education. So if you're not going to help these Black kids in these Black schools get educated, I'm coming off the bench. So when they talk about it's me, it's not true. So go to Linwood Bibbins, a buddy of mine. He bought the airport network, happens to be Black. Airport network has 70 million people going past his monitors. He has almost 200 Black franchise 200 McDonald franchises 20 feet from his monitors this is how much he gets from McDonald and advertising zero okay it not just me I just the guy who standing up and punching the bully in the face I'm the first one to say I don't care if it costs 50 million in legal fees we're going to war and we're going to close this economic trade gap and I will spend 500 million to do it. I don't care. It's the best thing I've ever done in my life. I'm 62 years old. The only thing I regret is I didn't do it when I was 22 because it was long overdue. And when we close this trade deficit, we're going to have a great America. We have an amazing America because now the crime is going to start to go away. When I see these kids going into these stores and grabbing and all that stuff, what I see, we failed them. We position them to fail. We didn't make sure they got a proper education, that they had economic inclusion. That's us stealing in those stores. That's not them. It's us. We need to lean in and position them to succeed. And when I go to war with corporate America and I spend millions of my money, I'm making a better America. And I'm thrilled to do it.

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Byron Allen: Well, let's go quickly to a question here. We're almost out of time. Hi. Hi, Byron. First of all, McDonald's has lost a lifelong customer today after hearing that statement because I know a lot of the details of that case and that's disappointing. I'm Marie Nelson. I began my broadcast career at ABC. I'm so sorry, not to cut you off. Julie, we also need to make a note about McDonald's. Chris Komzinski got caught, the head of McDonald's, sending racist text messages to the mayor of Chicago about Black and Latino people. It came out and then he went on an apology tour and he wasn't sorry about what he said. he was sorry he got caught. In the words of Dr. Maya Angelou, when somebody tells you who they are the first time, believe them. He sent those racist text messages. I'm the one just holding them accountable. So I want that note to be there too. Go for it. I'm sorry. Not a problem. I began my broadcast career at ABC, ultimately became an executive there. Hearing you tell your story, knowing that for, what was it, the first 15 years or so of your business. You weren't able to, you know, finance a lot of the acquisitions that you wanted to undertake. And then, you know, fast forwarding to this past summer with the BET and Paramount deal, you know, there are a lot of folks who say it wasn't just a valuation gap, that folks like JP Morgan, who were supposed to step up on the seller side to provide financing to some of the suitors, they backed off. There's a lot of things that are happening there. And when I think about the ABC sale and I know how much affinity Bob really does have for some of those assets. I wonder what your thoughts are on what really happened with Paramount and what lessons you carry into ABC sale.

Byron Allen: You know, listen, on the Paramount, once again, money wasn't an issue. We offered them, we offered them 3.6 billion. You know, I offered them 3.1 billion day one. And I said, I'll give you another $100 million a year for five years in transition services agreement. That's a lot of money. I offered them more than what it was worth. I actually did, but I wanted to get it done. I felt it was important for BET to fall, you know, to go back into Black ownership. And I wanted BET not for just economic reasons. I wanted BET for social reasons. I wanted to really have a platform to lean in with Black America to say, you have to vote. I need you to vote. There's a lot of people working really hard to make sure you don't vote. And that's really why I just said, I don't care. I said, give them an extra 500 million. I want it because it's more for social reasons than economic reasons. But they decided not to sell it, but that's okay. We have the griot and we'll build that up. I went and bought the company that does all the Black college sports and I brought them into our company. And now we're the largest provider of Black college sports and I'm paying Black colleges millions and millions of dollars. And I'm able to do that because I help. Madison Avenue accountable and said, I need you to put money in Black college sports because I'm going to educate these kids.

Byron Allen: I've been in solar and disrupting fossil fuels for 15 years. And so climate change is very important. My curiosity is, as I once heard Tom Steyer and utility executives connect the media conversation on how we fight climate change is through health conversations. And so really, while we all love polar bears, nobody's really going to change anything because a polar bear dies. But if we connect asthma, eczema, you know, cancer, any childhood disease to climate change, then we'll have a bigger movement. I'm curious, since you're so committed to that conversation, if you see that in any of your data, re-changing the narrative on why we should care about the climate.

Byron Allen: You know, five years ago when I bought the Weather Channel, we had to explain climate change and global warming. Today we don't because people are living it. They're watching the death, the destruction. You're going to see a lot of really bad things. You're going to see food shortages, water shortages. You're going to see us moving animals out of their natural habitation and closer to the human food chain. That's going to trigger more viruses, epidemics and pandemics. There are 200 million viruses out there that don't even have a name because they haven't started killing us yet. It's going to trigger refugees, climate change refugees. People can't live in that community anymore, but now they can't cross that border. So people are going to naturally start to adapt. Albert Einstein said it best. The very definition of intelligent life is life that can adapt. We're going to adapt. We have to adapt. The planet will be here. The question is, will the human beings be here? And more and more as we become more like food poisoning, what happens when you get food poisoning? You know what the body does. Flushes you right out of the system. We cannot become food poisoning for the planet. We'll get flushed out of the system, and it will be as if we were never here. Just ask the dinosaurs. It will correct itself or we will die. And I have more faith in us correcting it before we die. It will get addressed properly. Quite a note to end on. We've covered so much ground. There's so much more I wish we could sit and discuss, but it is time for a break. Thank you all so much for being here and we'll see you in a little bit. Obviously, you need to be at Code next year. To get on the Code 2024 waitlist, go to voxmediaevents.com slash code 2024. That's voxmediaevents.com slash code 2024.