Entrepreneur Byron Allen is buying a controlling stake in BuzzFeed, the company that was a pioneer in digital media on the internet 20 years ago.
Allen Family Digital, a company associated with the 65-year-old late-night host and standup comedian, will pay $120 million for a 52% share of BuzzFeed, The New York Times reported.
Allen will become chief executive and chairman of BuzzFeed; he will replace company founder Jonah Peretti, who will become president of artificial intelligence, BuzzFeed said in a news release on Monday.
The deal is expected to close by the end of May, Variety reported.
The agreement will be funded by $20 million in cash and $100 million in the form of a promissory note due five years after the deal closes, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Peretti, 52, founded BuzzFeed in 2006 as an experiment in a small office in New York City’s Chinatown section in the borough of Manhattan, the Times reported. Its value peaked a decade ago as BuzzFeed was seen as the future of media, but soon crashed after streaming zoomed past digital publishing, according to the newspaper.
The Walt Disney Co. offered to buy BuzzFeed in 2013 for $650 million, but that was rejected by Peretti.
During a conference call, Allen said that BuzzFeed would add local coverage to its national and international news articles on HuffPost, which BuzzFeed bought in 2020, the Times reported.
“Jonah is a great visionary and has done a phenomenal job. BuzzFeed and HuffPost have become two iconic global digital media brands with powerful audience reach and strong cultural importance,” Allen said in a statement. “Our vision is to build on the iconic foundation of BuzzFeed and HuffPost by expanding into free-streaming video, audio and user-generated content.”
At age 18, Allen was the youngest comedian to appear on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” according to IMDb.com.
Allen, who has a spot on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, expanded into business. His company bought The Weather Channel on May 22, 2018, for $300 million.
Recently, Allen paid CBS to take over Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” time slot; he will replace it with his own series, “Comics Unleashed,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
In a statement, Peretti called Allen “one of the most accomplished media entrepreneurs in the industry.”
“Byron’s vision, operational experience, and long-term commitment to premium content makes him exceptionally well-positioned to lead BuzzFeed and HuffPost into our next phase of growth,” Peretti said. “And personally, I’m thrilled Byron is taking over ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’s’ time slot, and highly confident that his relationships with talent will bring some incredible stars to the BuzzFeed platform.”