Byron Allen on how CBS handed him Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ time slot

As CBS sunsets “The Late Show,” media executive Byron Allen is gearing up to take over one of television’s most coveted evening time slots.

Starting Friday, Allen’s long-running syndicated comedy series, “Comics Unleashed,” will air at 11:35 p.m. ET.

Allen, who rose to fame as a stand-up comic, described the move as a “business opportunity” that he believes could help further expand his media empire. Last week, he bought a controlling stake in Buzzfeed, the digital media company co-founded by Jonah Peretti that helped define virality online.

His CBS pitch formed much earlier, however. Allen said that when news broke in July that the Paramount-owned CBS would be booting Stephen Colbert and the late-night staple off the air, he approached the network with a simple question.

“I said, ‘OK, do you like money?’” he said in an interview this week. “They said, ‘Yes!”

Allen is friends with Colbert — the two go way back. He urged CBS to “not put on another show” if it went through with canceling the cancellation. He said he told the network, “I’ll buy the time period, and you can save over $110 million.”

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert — Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show” on June 25.Scott Kowalchyk / CBS via Getty Images

Under the arrangement, Allen leases the hour and sells the advertising inventory himself. Although he wouldn’t reveal exactly how much he’s spending on the deal, he did say he’s “putting a lot of money in their cash register.”

“I am a gift from the money gods and the comedy gods,” he said.

Allen’s dream of appearing on late-night television dates back decades. When he was a child, his mother — an NBC employee who couldn’t afford childcare — took him to the lot in Burbank, California, where he got to watch late-night legend Johnny Carson in action.

“You know, my mom ended up convincing NBC to start an intern program with her, so she could work here for free,” he said. “While I was there, waiting for her to get off work, I’m watching Johnny Carson, and I’m like, wow, Johnny Carson is amazing, and he’s having the time of his life, lots of laughs, lots of fun.”

It all came full circle in 1979, when Allen got to do stand-up comedy on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”

“I was thinking to myself, in the next five minutes I’m going to change my life and my mother’s life forever, so I’m going to go out there and have a great time, and after I make these people laugh, we’re never going to worry about a bowl of cereal again,” he said.

Eventually, he jumped into the media business and founded Allen Media Group (Entertainment Studios) in 1993. He owns television channels such as Pets.TV and Cars.TV. And in 2018, Entertainment Studios bought the Weather Channel’s parent company.

He sees a bright future for Buzzfeed, a brand that he said has “a great following.”

“Everything Jonah [Peretti] has built in the last 20 years, we are not touching that,” he said. “That is the foundation we are building on that, and we’re making it additive.”

But the media company, which was among the first digital-media startups to be valued at over $1 billion, has struggled to maintain a sustainable business model, as Axios reported this week.

Allen’s plan for the site involves having user-generated content that won’t live behind a paywall and will instead be available on his ad-supported streaming platform, Local Now.

“‘Free’ is the world’s favorite word,” he said. “The two best words in media: ‘free’ and ‘streaming’ … bring it together and, poof, you’ve got something magical.”

Allen’s ambitions stretch even further. He said he eventually wants to control the premium cable network Starz, where he is the second-largest stockholder.

“I want to own it. I plan to own it, and somehow one day I’m going to own it and control it,” Allen said. “What I’ve said to them is, what I would like for you to do is, I would like to keep it publicly traded, and I would like for you to let me put more capital in Starz and become the controlling shareholder.”

That may be difficult, however.

Allen previously explored deals that didn’t materialize, including deals with TV station operator Tegna and the NFL’s Washington Commanders. In 2024, he also tried to make a play for Paramount, CNBC reported.

Last year, Starz separated from the studio, Lionsgate, to become its own standalone public company. In March, “the Starz board unanimously voted to adopt a limited-duration shareholder protection rights agreement, also known as a ‘poison pill,’” according to Deadline, which described the move as a “defensive strategy used by companies against activist investors and hostile takeovers.”

A representative for Starz didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

That hurdle doesn’t appear to deter Allen, however. At 65, he continues to pursue his dreams, with his mother remaining one of his biggest motivations in life.

“It makes me feel great, because at the end of the day, all I want to do is make my mama proud, no matter how rich I get,” he said. “I’m just still a little scared little boy hanging on to my mother’s leg.”

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