Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Byron Allen Talks Ownership, Building Black Wealth, Economic Inclusion + More

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INTERVIEW: Byron Allen Talks Ownership, Building Black Wealth, Economic Inclusion + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Don't every day a week ago clicks up the Breakfast Club.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: I'm finish for y'all Dune Morning.
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: Everybody is dj n V Jess hilarious, Charlamage to God.
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: We are the breakfast Club Law on the Roses here
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: as well, we got a special guest in the.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Building, one of my favorite people to talk to.
• 0:16
  Speaker 4: Man, ladies and gentlemen.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Welcome back.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: How are you feeling it? Oh my god, I feel
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: great and this is one of my favorite places to be,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: so thank you for having me back. I really appreciate you,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: and congratulations on all of your success. And I hear
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: something about the number one show on Netflix.
• 0:31
  Speaker 5: And we are podcasting because Netflix got into the podcasting games,
• 0:35
  Speaker 5: so we make up forty four percent of all podcasts
• 0:37
  Speaker 5: viewing on Netflix.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, there it is because you bring the truth, real, authentic.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: You're bringing it all right, do I best? No, you're
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: doing it.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: I love talking to you man, on and off air.
• 0:48
  Speaker 5: I like getting you on air, though, because I get
• 0:50
  Speaker 5: longer time, I feel like I'm bothering you.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: No, you never bother me. You never bother me. I
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: never say no to you. And remember that absolutely, you know,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: because I really love, appreciate you. I really love and
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: appreciate you a billion. All right, what's your vemo?
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: What just happened?
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: He had very very impressive announcements lately. And you're buying everything. Well,
• 1:20
  Speaker 5: you know this is Stars well BuzzFeed.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we bought just under eleven percent, ten
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: point seven percent. I like Stars. You know Stars says
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: that they're going after the underserved. That's cold for black.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Don't tell anybody. So if you're gonna go after us,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: maybe we should own it, all right, So if you're
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: chasing us, we should own it. So Steve Minushan used
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: to be my banker before he got into politics. He
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: was the Treasury secretary. And I saw that he owned
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: eleven percent, just under eleven percent, and I called him
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: up and I said, hey, do you want to own
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: mistake in Stars? It's publicly traded? And he said, you
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: know because I said, are you willing to sell it?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: He said not at these prices? And I said, well,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I didn't give you a price. I just asked you
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: a question. Are you willing to sell it? He said,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: let me think about it. He called me back. He said,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I'll sell it for twenty five million. I said, no problem.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Let's do it. We'll close tomorrow. So I bought it,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: and it was a key move because it's hard to
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: buy close to eleven percent of a company without driving
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: up the price because you're buying so many shares. So
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: I was able to get it done quietly and under
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the radar. It was really a good move for us
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: because we ended up being the second largest stockholder instantly,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: and now we have a seat at the table. And
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: so I've made it very clear I planned to buy
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the whole company. I want to control that company. My
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: first preference would be to keep it public and to
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: take fifty two percent of it and just control it.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: But they immediately adapted a poison pill, and they said,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: hold up. I saw that we do not want you
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: to own this company or control this company. So they
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: took a poison pill to stop me, and I said,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: that's okay. You know that won't stop me. You'll just
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: delay us, but we will eventually get what we want.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: My preference is for it to stay public and for
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: me to control it fifty one percent or greater. But
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: if I have to, I'll buy the whole company. Fire everybody,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: fire the board, not the people working there. Get rid
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: of the board for resisting me and then take it
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: back public.
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: So have you reached out to somebody like fifty things,
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: I mean to me fifty cent, the person who puts
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: stars on the map?
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Yes, I have not. I didn't want to put him
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: in a bad place, and you know, have him to
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: you know, figure out what side you know, you know,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: just let him stay neutral, which I think is a
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: smart place to stay. Let us duke it out in
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: terms of who's going to own it, who's going to
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: control it. But I'm highly confident eventually I will control stars.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: Can we go back to the beginning for people that
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: don't know you started off as a stand up comic. Yes,
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: and you've created such an amazing fortune.
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: Can you start how you started, what gave you the
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: mind frame and what made you think?
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: You know, I love comedy, but I want to go
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: this route as well, So start and start from there.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: You know what you know? Thank you for asking that question.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Early on, I figured out it's not show business, it's
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: business show and I started approaching it as a business.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: And that's important to me that we approach things as
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: a business. And so that's how I started. Started from
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: my dining room table, you know, first I was a comedian,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: started at fourteen years old. You know, as you know
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: my story, my mom got pregnant with me when she
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: was sixteen, had me seventeen days after her seventeenth birthday.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: So born to a teenage mom in Detroit, Michigan, April
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of sixty one, born with no civil rights and they
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: murdered Martin Luther King in April of sixty eight and
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: we went, you know, Detroit got lit up like a
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Christmas tree, and we ended up going to la for
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: a two week vacation and ended up staying there, and
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: you know, my mom was like, Okay, we're here, We're
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: gonna you know, we stayed on a lot of sofas,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: slept a lot of sofas and spare bedrooms because she
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: was a single mom with a kid that she had
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: when she was seventeen. And I'm really blessed. My mom
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: is not only you know, she's brilliant and she's beautiful.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: And she ended up going to UCLA and getting her
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: master's degree in Cinema TV Production. And because she got
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: her master's degree in Cinema TV Production from one of
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: the best film schools in the world, UCLA, she was
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: able to go ask for jobs. And she went all
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: over the country asking for jobs, all over town asking
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: for jobs, and it was a lot of no's. And
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: she got to NBC and she said, you know you
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: have a job here and they said no. And she said,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: do you have an intern program where I can work
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: here for free and show you my passion for the business.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: And they said no, we do not have an intern
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: program where you can work here for free. And then
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: she asked a question that changed our lives forever. She said,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: will you please start one with me? Wow? And they
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: said yes, And that changed everything. So my mom couldn't
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: afford child care, so she took her son to work
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: with her. And so I would go to the studio
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: and wait for my mom to get off from work
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: in the summer and after school, and I was standing there,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: just like a little kid, wallpaper up against the wall,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: and I'm watching this guy named Johnny Carson do the
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Tonight Show. And then I would walk across the hall
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: and I watch Red Fox tape Sanford and Son This
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: is Summer of seventy five. And then I'd wat walk
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: across the hall and watch Freddy Prince and Jack Albertson
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: do Cheek on the Man, and then I would watch
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Bob Hope do his specials, and I would watch George
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Burns and all of these great comedians, Richard Pryor do
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: the Flip Wilson show. I would watch Flip Wilson tape
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: his show, and I thought, what a wonderful way to
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: go through life making people laugh. So Gladys Night and
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: the Pips had a summer show summer of seventy five,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: and they had a comedian on it. And I knocked
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: on his door and I said, sir, how do you
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: become fourteen at the time? And I said, how do
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: you become a comedian? And he said, go to the
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: comedy Store? And I said, okay, thank you sir, and
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: I go, what's the name of that show that you
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: said is going to be on in the fall? And
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: he said, welcome back, Cotter and it was Gabe Kaplan
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: and it's you know he was. That's when they introduced
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: John Travolta. And I went to the comedy store called
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: the Comedy Store, and they said, we have Monday night
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: tryout nights. Get here early because people they get here.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: And we opened the doors at seven o'clock. I said,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: no problem, So I took the bus. I got there
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: at nine in the morning, and the doors weren't open,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: of course, and I right and I sat there on
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: the curb on sunset, and I just wrote jokes, and
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I just sat with my pad and I wrote and
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: all these thoughts and my head and I'm just writing.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: And I went on stage. Well, first of all, I
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: remember Mitzi Sure was signing us up. God bless her soul.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: She was signing us up at the door, and she
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: was barely even she didn't even barely look up. And
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: she goes, what's your name? What's your name? I said Byron,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and she looked up. She goes, how old are you?
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: And I said fourteen, ma'am. She goes, you can't be
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: in here. I'll lose my liquor license. You have to
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: leave immediately. And so I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. And
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I start to leave and then I hear say, wait
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: a second, come back. She goes, here's what you do.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: You stay out in the back. Do not come in
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the club because I can lose my liquor license. And
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: she said, I'll send somebody to get you. And here's
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a drink ticket. Don't you dare get any alcohol? I said,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: no problem, mam, I'll I just drink water. No problem.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: To this day, I still don't drink alcohol. I'm sixty
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: five years old, right. So finally I'm standing in the
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: back right, and all of a sudden, they go, mitzi's
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: ready for you. I said, okay, and I walked in.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: There were literally four people in the club right, two couples,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: four people, two hundred chairs, and I out to myself,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I have to figure out how to make chairs laugh
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: right now. I need to figure out how to get
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: these chairs rolling. So I go up there and I
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: give everything I got. Boom boom, bom boom. I come
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: off stage and this guy says to me, hey, and
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: who wrote those jokes? I said, I did. He goes,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: they were funny. I said, well, those chairs didn't think
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: they were funny. He goes, no, no, they were funny.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: He goes, can I get your phone number? He says,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: you know, I know somebody may want to, you know,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: really be interested in knowing you. I said, no problem.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I gave my phone number, and like a week or
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: two later, I get this phone call and I go.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Guy goes, guy speak to Byron I go, this is Byron.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: He goes, this is Jimmy and JJ walka wowow. So
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: this is summer of seventy five. He's the biggest comedian
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: television star planet Earth. Wow, good Times, number one show.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Dine on my right, dine on my So I said,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: this is Byron. He goes, my man Wayne Kleine saw
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: you at the comedy store and he says, you're funny.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: And if my man Wayne says you're funny, then you
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: must be funny. I said, I'll tell Wayne. I said, hello,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: thank you. He goes, I'm in a writer's meeting right now,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: me and my writers. We're in a writer's meeting and
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: we're sitting here and we're wondering if you want to
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: come over here and write with me and my boys.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And I said, well, let me ask my mom, and
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: so he goes. He goes, oh, man, he has to
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: ask his mom. You know this is back when you
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: had the heart here to put your hands over the phone.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And then I heard this dude in the background. I'll
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: tell his mom not to worry. We'll have cookies and
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: milk for him. And he's like, be nice, Dave, you're
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: gonna scare this kid, and so my mom said, okay,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: you can go, you can go over So she takes
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: me over there to I'm fourteen while so I walked
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: into Jimmy's. We got to get you the photo of
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: me fourteen years old. I'm sitting in Jimmy Walker's living
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: room and summer of seventy five, and I walk in there. Right,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: it's Jimmy Walker. David Letterman. That was the day cookies
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: and milk. He had just driven out from Indianapolis in
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: a red or orange pickup truck because he didn't think
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: he was gonna make it and he wanted to be
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: able to get in his car and drive home, or
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: his truck and drive home. Jay Lennel, who was sleeping
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: in his car. Wow.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Marty Natler, who went on to write and produce Laverne
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: and Shirley In Happy Days. Jay and Dave were getting
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: paid two hundred dollars a week. Okay. I had a
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: paper route that I just quit. I was delivering the
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles Harold Examiner, and I had to throw it.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: When I would throw a newspaper, I got half a penny.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: If I threw two newspapers, I got a full penny.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I had to throw two hundred newspapers to get a dollar. Wow.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: So I was on my bike and I was pumping, man,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: I was throwing. I had one lady who got upset
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: with me for not getting it on her porch and
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: on instead on her steps. I had to get off
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: my bike and put it right on her porch right.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: So that was my paper out. So when I sold
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: this joke to Jimmy Walker for twenty five dollars, I
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: was like, man, that's five thousand news. Whoa baby, I
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: have hit the lottery. Yes, we are rolling now. I
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: am in the game. This is it. We gonna be
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: running things here from here on out. I got this
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: twenty five dollars. We are rolling, baby, that's it. So
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm out of here, no more delivering newspapers.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: I have made it right, So I get this twenty
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: five bucks. And then so Jimmy hands me a check
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, I've never seen a check before. I
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: ain't know what that was. I'm like, where's the cash?
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Where is I need? I need five fives, I need
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: a twenty five even twenty five ones? What are we
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: doing here? And so I take it to my mom.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: I go, what is this? And my mom's like, it's
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: a check. I go, what is a check? She goes,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: You're gonna take it to the bank. The bank. She goes, yeah,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: and you're gonna hand it to him. Oh, And I go,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: what's gonna happen when I hand it to him?
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Mom?
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: They're gonna give you the cash. Oh, that's all right,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: forget about it, don't worry about it. She said, what
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: do you mean? I said, I don't want to cash it.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: I don't want to cash it. She goes, said, you crazy, Well,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: this check says to me, I can make it in
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: this business. I want to look at this check every
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: day every day. Mom, forget it. I'll keep my tip
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: my paper out. It doesn't matter. She goes, no, no, no, no,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: you need that money. You are going to cash that
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: check and you're gonna go to Jimmy and you're gonna say, Jimmy,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: you got back that check that I can because he's
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: gonna get it and then he can give it to you.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: So after a writer's meeting, I said, Jimmy, can I
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: get that check back that I that I that you
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: gave me? And he said, no problem, right kind of
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: casual I didn't really think he hurt me. And then
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: like a month later he had me. He handed me
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the check and I framed it and to this day,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: fifty one years later, wow, it hangs in my office.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: So I had Jimmy on my show and I said, Jimmy,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: does this look familiar? He looked at it. I go,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: this is the moment I knew I could make it
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: in this business. Wow, thank you, Wow wow. Okay. So
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: he gave me that check and then and then that
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: was for writing. And I was fourteen, and I never
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: stopped performing. And I did the uh and I did
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: that I ended up doing, and Bud Freeman was the
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: first one to give me. He owned the improv. God
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: bless his soul. And one night he said, what are
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: you doing New Year's Eve? I'm like, I'm seventeen. I
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: don't have a date.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: He said, I want you to perform New Year's Eve.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: I go, okay, no problem, I'll be there. I don't
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: have any plans. So I performed. Was seventeen. I did
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: the New Year's Eve show, and then like a month
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: or two later, he walked up and handed me a
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: check for twenty five dollars. I go, what is this for?
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: He said, well, you perform New Year's Eve. And I
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: paid comedians on New Year's Eve. At this point, we
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: didn't get paid to perform at the comedy clubs. And
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: so I was like, really, you paying me to be
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: a comedian cause in my mind, I'm willing to do
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: this for free for ten lifetimes, that's how much I
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: love it. He said, no, no, you got it. Those
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: two checks are framed and hanging in my office, the
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: twenty five for writing a joke and the twenty five
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: for performing. Wow. And I never stopped performing when I
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: started writing for Jimmy and I ended up doing The
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Ended up being the youngest
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: comedian to do it with Johnny. I was eighteen years old.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I got a lot of offers, thank god. And one
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: of the offers, Joan Rivers wanted to do a sitcom
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: with me. And I loved Joan. I just loved her.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: And one of the offers was this reality show. And
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I said, and I'm very numerical. I love numbers. I've
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: always loved numbers, right, and I've always said, approach it with,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: you know, through the lens of numbers, mathematically so one
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: of the offers was a reality show, and I said,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I want to go with this, and my mom said,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: what do you want to go with that? And I said, well,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: you know, mom, there are three networks ABC, NBC, CBS,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: and that's it. Three networks, no Fox at this point
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine, and I sit there. Each network has
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: twenty two hours of primetime, sixty six hours in total.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: This is the only hour that's different from the other
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: sixty five hours. And I think the mere fact that
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: this hour is different from the other sixty five hours,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: this show could make it and make it long enough
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: to put me through USC Film School, so Mom, you
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: don't have to pay for it. I think it's strong
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: enough to do that because it's different. Little did I
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: know real people. The show I picked went on Wednesday night,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: tod eight o'clock, and it changed the face of television
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: and gave birth to what we now know reality television shows.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: It was the first reality show, and for me, I
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: was able to travel the country and see everything in
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: between LA and New York, because that's truly America. I'm
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: in these little towns co Shockton, Ohio, wardlou I'm in
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: these Spotsman one stop, like, I'm the first black person
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: they've ever seen. I was like et in some of
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: these towns, they were like et phone home. I'm like, yeah,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: they had never seen anybody black in person. And it
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: was like, Wow, this is America. And you get to
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: see America and you really get to see it, right
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: down to the smallest town and the people, and you're
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: like you're on their porches, you're in their homes, they're
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: talking to you, they're relating to you, and you get
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: to know that's invaluable that input. So when I was
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: on Real People, you know, there was a contract dispute,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: and in that contract dispute, they said this is what
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: you're worth. And I thought my worth was far greater.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: And it hurt me as to, hey, this is what
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: your worth. And I said, you know what, I'm never
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: going to let anybody determine what my worth is again.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: I will work from myself from this point on. So
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: I went to my first television convention when I was
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: about nineteen years old. January of January of twenty twenty,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, what was it, January of eighty ms, I'm sorry,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: losing my years. January of eighty one January of eighty one,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: that's when it was, and it was in here in
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: New York natby National Association of Television Programming Executives was
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: at the New York Hilton.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: How did you know to go to that?
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Somebody had told me about her, you know, my agent
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: and said, hey, there's this convention blah blah blah. So
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: I walked into the hotel and I said, who's the smartest,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: who's the best in the business. And they said al Massini.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: I said al Massini, Okay, where can I find him?
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: They said, he's up on the forty fourth floor. And
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: the hotel was packed because of the convention, and it
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: took me a half hour to get up the elevator, right,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: So I get up there he's up on the floor.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: He's up and he's in the suite and he's pitching
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: to all these guys in suits. And his back was
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: to the door. And I walked in and I'm watching
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: him sell. I'm watching him sell this idea to these executives.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: He's all these guys in suits and he says, I
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I have this idea and I'm gonna spend thirty million dollars.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: This is January of eighty one. He says, I'm gonna
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: spend thirty million dollars producing this idea, and I'm using
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: this technology and I'm gonna use satellite and it's a
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: it's a show where I'm gonna tape it at twelve
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: thirty in the afternoon and I'm gonna put it on
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: the satellite. And this guy goes, what's a satellite. He goes,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: it's new technology and it's a bird. And I'm gonna
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: buy you a dish and when you get back to
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: your town, Cleveland, wherever you're from, there's gonna be a
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: satellite dish and you're gonna pull it down off of
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the bird, off of the satellite. You're gonna run it
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: at seven o'clock and it's a unique show. And they said, okay, al,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: what's the name of the show. He said, I'm calling
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the show Entertainment Tonight. And I watched him sell Entertainment
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Tonight in January of eighty one for September or launch
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: September of eighty one, and then I walked up to him.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: I introduced myself, said, mister Merssini, mister Messina, understand you
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: the best. Just want to get to know you. And
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: learn from you. And I said, where are we haveing
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: dinner tonight? He gotta laugh. He said, I'm taking my
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: clients to dinner. I said, well can I come? He goes,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: you like Italian food? I said, I love Italian food?
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Where are we going? And so I watched him and
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: I'm watching himself, and he became like a second father
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: to me.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: He you know, he never had kids, got married four times.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: I was at three of his four weddings, all nice ladies.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: So you know, he just really helped me learn the business,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: you know. And I watched him sell entertainment tonight, Star Search,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Lifestyle is rich and famous, solid gold, blah blah blah.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah too, you are too young for these shows.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: I never heard of him say when you said, I
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: know what they knew about et but continue, these shows
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: are way before your time, way before your time.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, but but I would get it, like
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: if you didn't see the class. Oh yeah, okay, these
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: are class Okay. So he created these shows and he
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: made me, he said, Byron, these were he said, these
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: were shows I listened to on the radio. He said,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: these were radio shows. He goes. When I was a kid,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: I loved Heidi Hopper, she told you the entertainment news.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: He said, I loved Hit Parade right, solid Gold. I
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: loved Ted Max, Amateur Hour, Star Search. So he took
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: what he heard as a kid on the radio and
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: made television shows. And I said, got it. And then
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: there was guys like Roger King and Michael King. They
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: gave you will for They gave you will of Fortune
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: and Jeopardy Open and Jeopardy and Oprah, and they were
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: just great guys and they helped me and they embraced me,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: and they were like, we see your hustle, we like
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: your hustle. We see what's going on with you in
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the industry.
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: That's a question, at what point, at what point in
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: any of those moments did you realize I don't want
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: to just be talent.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: I got to own the machine.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: That's it. You know, at that point when someone said, hey,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: this is when I'm going to pay you to host
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: real people, and it was like, no, that's I'm worth
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: more than that, you know, and I don't want to
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: work for anybody right as a kid in Detroit. I
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: think coming from Detroit really helped me a lot too.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: You know, there was two sides of my family. You know,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: on my father's side, my grandfather and my grandmother opened
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: a skating rink seventy five years ago that's still open,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: the Rollercade roller Rink. It's more than seventy five years
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: and it was a place where the community would go
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: roller skating. So now, remember I'm born in sixty one, right,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I was roller skating before I was walking. My very
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: first job five years old, whatever it is, four or six,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: I don't even know. I was a kid. There's a
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: photo of me standing in skates in the middle of
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the roller skating rink. My first job, I'm the floor guard.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: My job is to have a whistle, and when a
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: kid fell, all of a sudden, all the kids would
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: stack up and start going up to the ceiling. My
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: job was to blow the whistle, so my cousin would
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: take the needle off of the record stop playing the song,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: so the kids would stop skating and piling up to
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: the city to the ceiling. So I watched my grandfather
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: and my grandmother own and operate this business, and I
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: watched them, you know, put the money in the cash register,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: and we owned this business. So that right there was
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: that side of me right, seeing that from my father's side,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: my grandfather Lee Roy, watching Lee Roy and Johnny May,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Johnny May and Leroy built this business. Then on my
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: mom's side and also my dad, my dad worked at
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Ford Motor Company for thirty plus years and my granddaddy
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: worked at Great Lake Steel for thirty something years. And
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I watched these guys go to work and get to
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: work an hour early every day, never late, and never
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: called in a day sick, that blue collar mentality where
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: they was just the work ethic was just like a
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: force of nature, show up every day and give one
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: hundred and ten percent. So you see that both sides,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: that blue collar and that you know that business side right,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: that entrepreneurship. So I was at that perfect blend of
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: seeing it from both sides. And I remember my mother
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: and my grandmother would put me in the car with
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: my uncle who's really like my brother. He's only four
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: years older than me, Terrence, and they would take us
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: to see where all the rich white people lived, and
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: they were like, and that's where the Ford family lives.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: And you just look at this big mansion, like, wow,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: look at that. That place is bigger than my school.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: And they were like that's where the Dodge family lives,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: and the Chrysler family and the good Year family, these
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: industrial families. And they said, and that's where Barry Gordy lives.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: I went, what Barry Gordy, a black man lives over
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: here with this big, old nice house. Oh yeah, he
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: has a swimming pool in his house. Are you kidding me?
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: You mean to tell me I'm walking thirty minutes to
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: get into the community swimming pool or I'm waiting around
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: for the fire department to open up a fire hydrant
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: and this dude has a pool in his house. Oh yeah,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: he's got a bowling alley in his house. What a
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: bowling alley? Oh my, tell me more about this guy.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: His name is Barry Gordy. Motown Records, blah blah blah.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I said, okay, there it is right there. I'm chasing him.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I'm chasing him and I'll never forget when he sold
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Motown and he had every right to do it, I cried.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I was in the room when they announced it. He
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: was on stage and MCA Records bought it. I was
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: back there and they had it up at Universal Studios then.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I think it's sixty million, and I was like a
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: lot of money, and he's and he sold it, but
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: he kept the publishing, being the brilliant very that he is.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: And I thought, my god, we have to own something.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: As black people, we don't own anything. America can't be
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: this wealthy without us, you can't. Anybody can be very
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: wealthy with hundreds of years of free labor. Anybody can
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: be a gazillionaire, but we don't own it. And I said,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: we have to own something. And I decided I'm gonna
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: build something that we will own. It has to be
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: owned by us. We have to control the narrative. We
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: have to control how we're produced. We have to control
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: how we're depicted and how we're seeing around the world.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: We can't let others do that. And the key to
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: that is to understand it and approach it as business show,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: not show business. So what does that mean? I have
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: to get to know everybody who owns and operates a
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: television station, no problem. I traveled the country as a
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: comedian and what I would do is invite all the
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: people who owned and operated television stations come to my show.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: And if they couldn't come to my show, I'd go
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: to their station. Can I take you to breakfast? Can
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I take you the lunch? Can I take you to dinner?
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Let's go to the movies. Let's get to know each other,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: hang out. So I got to know all the people
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: who owned and operated television stations. I'm not in their
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: country club. And if I'm not in your country club,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: I got to create my own country club. Pull up
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: at Denny's. This is my country club. What you want
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: some pancakes? I got you. So I get to know everybody.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: I get to know the TV stations. Now I have
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: to get to know all the advertisers. So wherever I go,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I go sit down with the advertisers, the clients. Hey,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: what are you doing over here? Talk to the clients
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Coca Cola, I go see them, right, got to know them.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Now I can put the two together. And I started
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: the company from my dining room table. And I put
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: on my first show, Entertainers would Buyron Allen fall of
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: ninety three.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Group.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is out under Allen Media Group. So I
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: called I had a guy. I called all I said,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: this is a once a week show where I interviewed
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: movie stars talking about their movies. Right, I went to
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: the junkins. It's a one hour show, there's fourteen minutes
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: of commercial time. Right, I'll keep seven minutes. You TV station,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: you keep seven minutes. I will sell my seven minutes
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: to national advertisers. You sell your seven minutes to local advertisers. Right.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: I had a guy say to me, Hey, if you
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: was an ad sales guy, he goes, if you clear
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: seventy five percent of the country, I will give you
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: an advance of four hundred grand so you can go
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: into production. I said, no problem. Sat at my dining
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: room table from sun up to sundown for a year,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: wore holes in my dining room chairs, and I called
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: all twelve hundred television stations from sun up to sundown
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: asked them to pick up this once a week show
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: for free, where I would keep half of the commercial
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: time inside the show. And literally I got fifty to
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: one hundre knows from each of them, and after working
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: through fifty thousand plus nos, I was able to squeeze
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: out one hundred and fifty yes's, and that was a
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: TV station in every market from New York to Waterloo, Iowa.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: And I was able to then say the advertisers, look,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: I can give you x y z percent of the country.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: So I went to the guy and said, you know
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: what you tell me, if I cleared seventy five percent
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: of the country, you would give me four hundred grand.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I've cleared ninety five percent of the country, some far
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: greater than seventy five whatever it was, And he said,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: I changed my mind. I'm not going to give you
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: the four hundred grand, and I thought, my god, I
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: just spent a year of my life building out this lineup.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: And what really the defining moment for me was back
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: then was my mom was doing my paperwork and I
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: remember and she would, you know, whenever I got a
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: station cleared, she would put it onto the clearance list.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: And I noticed, I said, Mom, you didn't put down
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: that I cleared the CBS affiliate in Wilkespear, Scranton. And
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: she's shuffling all these papers around. She's shuffling, and I'm like, mom,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: you got to be more organized, like this is really
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: hard to get. She goes byron They didn't it didn't
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: send it back. So I called the guy up and
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: I said, Bob, it appears as if my executive assistant
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: has misplaced your paperwork. And he said, no, she didn't
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: misplace it. He goes, I know, I told you I
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: would do the deal, but I changed my mind. I'm
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: not doing the deal. I'm not putting you on Saturday
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: night at eleven thirty. And I said, you're good man,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I said, I said, I said, are you serious, Bob?
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: He said yeah, he said, he said, I'm not doing
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: the deal. I oh why? And this is a big
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: deal because people who run TV stations, they're usually their
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: word is gold. They do not go back on their word, right,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: he said. He said, I had some sales guys in here,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: three of them from Paramount's studios, and they came in
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: to sell me a show, and they told me I
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: should give them your time period the eleven thirty, he said.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: They told me you were calling me from your dining
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: room table and your underwear, your pajamas, whatever you're wearing,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: and that the show is never gonna be there, and
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: if it is there, you're gonna put it on for
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: two or three weeks and then you're gonna cancel the show.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: So I gave him your time period, and that is
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: what it is, and goodbye, and he hung up the phone. Right,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: he still called him back, Right, so I call him.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: I said, Bob, Wait one second, I said, listen, Buddy.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I said listen, Okay, I said, listen. How many guys
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: did they send in from Paramount? He goes three. I
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: was like, okay, I said, did they have on nice suits?
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: He goes yeah. I go yeah. They get paid a
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: lot of money. Now at this point, I couldn't afford
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: to go see people at TV stations. I said, the
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: boys from Paramount are right. I am calling you from
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: my dining room table. And you know what, Bob, I'm
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: not gonna lie. I'm in my underwear too. Okay, I said,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: But here's the deal. I said, the show's gonna be there,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: The show is gonna be on the air. And tell
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: the boys from Paramount. I'm never gonna cancel the show
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: because of what they did. I'm gonna leave the show
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: on until the end of time because I'm never gonna
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: let the boys from Paramount come into a TV station
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: and cast doubt on me and my abilities. And I
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: never want them to convince anybody in this world that
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do what I say I'm gonna do.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: So let the boys from Paramount know you got this clearance,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: but you'll never get another one from me based on
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: you telling people I'm not gonna come through. I'm gonna
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: leave it on until the end of time. I'm never
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: canceling the show. Just tell him that. So fast forward
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: two weeks later, the guy says, I'm not sending you
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: to four hundred grand, and I thought, damn, those boys
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: from Paramount. I said, I am not calling this dude
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: back and telling him the boys from Paramount were right.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: The show's not gonna be there. I'll be Damn. I'm
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: going forward. I'm gonna figure it out. I didn't know
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: how to sell advertising time, Okay, so my home went
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: in and out of foreclosure fourteen times. There are days
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: I'm not eating right, I'm skipping meals. They turned my
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: phone off. I'm calling TV stations and advertisers from a
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: pay phone, right, and I'm just going I'm smiling and dilling,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: dolling and smiling. And finally I started getting one eight
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: hundred love songs of the eighties and disco Songs of
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: the seventies. And the lady said, well, I'll give your
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: own phone number so when people call and order up
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: a disc a CD, you'll get credit for it. And
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: every Monday, I said how many CDs did I sell?
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: How many love songs did I sell? She said, you
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: sold eight hundred dollars worth? You sold one thousand and nine.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: And she would FedEx me to check for Tuesday delivery.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: And that's how we pay my bills. I had to
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: get that FedEx every Tuesday, right, And so then after
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: I got one eight hundred love songs of the eighties,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: I said, okay, movie studios, movie stars on. You're spending
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: a billion a year advertising. Spend money with me so
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I can be there to support you. Solidified the movie industry.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Then I went and solidified car companies, soft drinks, packaged goods, pharmaceuticals.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: I just went industry by industry, looked up. Bam, I'm
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: in business now with you know, seven hundred advertisers kept
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: smiling and dialing, dialing and smiling. Put on another show,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: another show, another show. Next thing. You know, we're sitting
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: there with seventy something television shows, seventy five plus TV
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: shows in business with every television station in the country,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: and pretty much seven hundred plus advertisers ended up with
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the largest privately held television library. And then I realized, Hey,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I want to go into the linear space. So then
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: I started launching cable networks so we could be twenty
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: four to seven. And then the opportunity for the Weather
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Channel came along. Guy came to me and he said, Hey,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: can I have dinner with you? I said sure, I said,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: let's have dinner. He says, you know, before I became
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the CEO of of this company, had a company called
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Encompass where they satellite twenty four hour networks. He said,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I used to be the CEO of a chief operating
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: officer of the Weather Channel. He says. You don't think
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: about the Weather Channel because you live in LA and
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: it's always eighty degrees and sunny. He goes, but it's
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: a great business and you should buy it. He said.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: It's owned by two private equity firms that manage like
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: a trillion dollars and NBC Universa, and they're not getting
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: along and they want to sell it, and you should
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: get in there and go get it. I got into
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: the process and I bought it, and after that we
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: just started buying other assets. Invested about a billion dollars
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: buying ABCNBCCBS and Fox affiliates. I bought those affiliates so
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: that I could protect my cable networks, right, so we
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: can grow that, and then we started investing now in
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: digital platforms.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: It's in fast forward.
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: Now you've just purchased the eleven thirty time slot on CBS.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, with Paramount, different management, different overship, but came all around. Yeah, yeah,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: it came around. Yeah, the boys from Paramount that moment,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: if they hadn't said that to him, it was like,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: did you just tell that dude, I'm not gonna do
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do it, damn it.
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: When you're thinking about that for years, like one day,
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna buy that time.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Listen, since the moment I was
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: a kid, since I was fourteen years old and my
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: first laid eyes on Johnny Carson, I said, that's what
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: I'm doing. I'm gonna do that show. I'm gonna I'm
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: gonna do a late night show. And that relationship with
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Johnny for me started real early, right, So Johnny Carson,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: King of television. Right, he would pull into his parking
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: space at NBC at two o'clock like clockwork, right, that's
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: summer time. I don't have anything to do. I'm waiting
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: for my mom to get off work, and I would
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: start these little conversations with him because I knew he
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: would pull in and I say, mister Carson, I saw
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: your monologue last night. I really liked this joke. Blah
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: blah blah. And then over time he's like, hey, you
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: like that one. I go, yeah, that was a good joke,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: mister Carson. And over time I just kept right. Over time,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: I would just say, mister Carson, I like this, mister Carteron,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: and he got to know my name. He said, thank
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: you Byron, thank you Byron. So then when I do
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: the tonight show, I'm eighteen years old and I'm standing
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: behind the curtain and I'm talking to the crew. I
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: don't know if you ever saw the Gong Show. There
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: was a guy called Jean Jean Jean the Dancing Machine.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Remember Jean Jean the Dancing Machine. There was a guy.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: He would come out and he would dance with Chuck Bears.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: He was one of the crew guys, and he was
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: the one who would open the curtain. And I'm joking
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: with him and another guy and we're standing there and
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: I'm waiting to walk on, and all of a sudden,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: they stopped. They got real serious. All of a sudden,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: they stopped like joking with me because I had my
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: back to the curtain, and they went like that, they
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: cleared their throats right. So I was sudden, like, why
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: are these two brothers all serious all of a sudden
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: like that? And then I turned around. It's Johnny Carson
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: and he said, don't worry, kid. He said, don't worry kid,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: You're gonna be great like that. And they said to me,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: in all the years we've worked with him, twenty thirty years,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: all these years we've opened the curtain for the guests,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: he has never gotten up from behind his desk and
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: said anything to anybody. They said, whoa, That's all they said, whoa. Right,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: So I said, I stood behind that curtain. I said, Okay,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: in the next five minutes, I'm going to change my
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: life and my mother's life for the better. Next five minutes,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: open the curtain. Let's do this damn curtain open up?
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Did the you know? Did my set got all these off?
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: So I got to know Johnny. He basically every comedian
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: has two birthdays, the real birthday April twenty second, nineteen
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: sixty one, and the day they do the tonight Show
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: with Johnny May seventeenth, nineteen seventy nine. Right, So I
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: do the show and it got me real people, so
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: forth and so on. So I ended up doing The
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Byron Allen Show, is a once a week one hour show,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: and I had on Whitney Houston, which is one of
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: my favorite interviews, and it's all over TikTok now and
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. And because I went on tour with
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Whitney and a few other folks. So they said, where
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: do you want to tape the show? I said, I
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: like to tape it at NBC where I grew up
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: on the lot going to work with my mom. They said, okay,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: So they show me all the studios that are available, right,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: they say, this studio. That's dude. I said, you know,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: you showed me every studio except one. They go which one.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: I said, you didn't show me Johnny Carson Studio. And
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: I looked at me and they started these guys who
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: run the you know the studio, started looking around. That
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: was funny. It's good you should put that on the show, right.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: I said no, no, no, no, I said, I said, no,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: you didn't show me Johnny Studio. They go, what are
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: you thinking? I said, Well, let me tell you what
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking. I said. He shows up at two o'clock,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: like clockwork. He walks in, goes up to his office,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: he works on his monologue. He comes down at five
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: twenty seven and he gets right behind the curtain, and
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: at five point thirty exactly, they start the theme song,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Dune Dun Dum. He hits his mark. He does a
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: seven to ten minute monologue, goes on, he does his show.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Show ends at six point thirty, like clockwork. He goes upstairs,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: he changes his clothes, he takes his makeup off. He's
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: back downstairs by about six forty five. His two producers,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Peter Lasally and fred D Kordovo, walk him to his
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: car between six forty five and seven o'clock, and he
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: tells them what he liked about the show and what
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: he didn't like about the show, who he wants back on,
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: and who he did do want back on, and then
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: he's off the lot no later than seven o'clock and
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: he's driving back to his home in Malibu on the beach.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: That's his schedule Tuesday through Friday. So here's my thinking.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: We strike his set the moment he drives off the lot.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: You start, you let my crew come in at seven
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: oh two, strike his set. His set comes out. You
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: put my set in on Saturday. I tape two shows
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: on Sunday, and then we put his set back in
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: on Monday. He drives in from man Malibu on Tuesday
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: and it's like it's never been moved. That's my thinking.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Why is this studio so important to you, Byron? Why
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: do you want this studio? I said, because this studio
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: was built by a comedian for a comedian. It was
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: built by Bob Hope. He's the one who designed the studio.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Most television studios, the audience sits in a pit, and
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: when you're a comedian, you walk out and you tend
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: to play the audience, so you're looking down at the audience,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: so your eyes are closed and the camera's right there,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: and you're not looking at the camera because the audience
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: is below the camera. I said, But Bob Hope designed
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: this studio where you put in stadium seating and it
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: rakes up, and it rakes up, so it forces you
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: to open up, and your eyes open up and you
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: look up and the camera's right there. You are able
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: to connect with the audience and be more intimate as
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: you do your comedy, you're more open as opposed to
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: close and looking down. Bob Hope designed it. That's why
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Johnny Carson loves his studio. That's why Bob Hope does
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: his monologues still for his special in the studio. This
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: is the studio for a comedian. They said, okay, they said,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: we will ask him. He's gonna say no. I said yes,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: But after he says no, after he says no, just
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: tell him the request came from Byron Allen. Just say that.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: So they go, mister Carson, man, we strike your studio,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: your set and put in another show. Hell no, why
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: are you coming to me and asking me that. Sorry
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: to bother you, sir, Sorry to bother you. By the way,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: just so you know, if the request came from Byron Allen,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: he goes, oh, came from Byron al It came from
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Byron Huh. He goes, yeah, the kid can strike my set.
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: Wow. They called me back. They go, wow, he said
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: you can strike his set. I said thank you. They
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: say to me, okay, you're in. They said, we're giving
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: you park Johnny was parking space number one. They said,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: we're giving you parking space number two. I said, I
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: don't want parking space number two. They said, don't you
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: dare ask for number one? I said, I'm not that crazy.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: I said, Johnny Carson has a white Corvette. I have
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: a black car. I don't want to nick his car.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: Can I have parking space number three? Put somebody in
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: between us. Let them nick Johnny Carson's car.
• 45:11
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: They said, okay, no problem, So they gave me parking
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: space number three. Right, so they give me parking space
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: number three. Why was that key? It's because I wanted
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: to have these conversations with Johnny in the parking lot,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: and I wanted to learn from him. So I said,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: mister Carson, as you see, my show was on Saturday
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: night at eleven thirty on ABC KBC. Yeah, I did
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: watch it. What you think, sir? He goes, Okay, I
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: think you should pull back. He says, let your guests
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: shine you step. He goes, you can always be funny.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: You're always be the funniest one there. Don't ever worry
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: about that. He goes, You're very funny, very talented. He goes,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: just pull back. You're just there to make sure they
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: don't fall. He goes, you step in when they're kind
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: of stumbling and he goes and then he said something
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: to me I never forgot. He said, Byron, remember this,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: I'm not doing a talk show. The first half hour
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: of my show is a comedy show. He said, kid,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: make them laugh, make them laugh, And I said, got it.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: And that's how I created Comics on Leash. And I said, ah,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do a talk show. I did a
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: talk show, The Byron Allen Show, where I had on
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: the biggest stars in the world and it failed. It failed.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Who cares. They didn't need me going blah blah blah.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: And I said, no, I'm gonna do a comedy show.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna have celebrities on talking about anything, plugging anything.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna have comedians on being funny and making
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: people laugh. It's not about us, it's about you. It's
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: about making sure you laugh. It's about making sure we
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: give you a great return of your investment of time
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: that you gave to us. So that's how I gave
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: birth to Comics on Lease twenty years ago because of
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: those conversations with Johnny Carson in the parking lot, and
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: I paid a fortune to strike his set and put
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: my set in. But I was able to go to
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Johnny Carson University and have those conversations a minute, two minutes,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: three minutes in the parking lot and get that point
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: of view, and he would just this is the man
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: who created late night television at the next level. He
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: didn't start it. Steve Allen did, and those guys did it,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: but he's the one who really made it a science.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: And he said that first half hour it's just comedy.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Then I have a couple of celebrities on to talk
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: about this and that, right, and so comedy exactly what
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: you're going.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: To be doing.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: That's exactly. It's exactly a comedy show. It's nothing but comedians, right.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: I launched the show twenty years ago, and this is
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: our twentieth anniversary. We've had on about a thousand comedians,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: a little over a thousand comedians as on. Most of
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: them unknown, most of them unknown, an unknown, Kevin Hart,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: an unknown, Sebastian Manaskowsko, Nate Bergotsky, right, Nate Bergotsky, Theo,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: vaughn ryl Underwood, Tiffany Hattish. Some of them they're you know,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Leslie Jones. Some of them this is their first television
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: appearance Dean Edwards, you know, like on and on Godfrey,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: some of the greats. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, same thing.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: There's nothing about the show is changing other than you know,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: we just we're on CBS and syndication. We're still keeping
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: it in syndication. So the idea and it's for me,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: it's full circle because this is something I've always wanted,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: obviously for myself and for the community. Right, television is
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: almost one hundred years old, one hundred years old, ABC, NBC, CBS.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: We've never had a black person in that eleven thirty
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: time period on a regular basis, right, so we've never
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: had that network television. We had our first black president
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: before we had our first network late night hosts on
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: a network was a network. Yeah, our senials great. Our
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Sinio is amazing. He was syndicated, and I think if
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: he had been on the network, his show would have
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: run a lot longer.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: Absolutely right.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: That distribution gets challenging. As the local TV station said,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: I want to do this, I want to do that.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: Our Sinio is amazing and I love our sitting. The
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: network never opened up the door to him the way
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: I think they should have opened the door to him.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: They should have given it should have been network right.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: In my humble opinion, he deserved that. So I said, Okay,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm not gonna wait for them to open
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: up the door. I'm just gonna buy it.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: Why is it worth it for you to do that
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: like that model?
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: Like I know you leased the airtime, Well, CBS leased
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: the airtime to your company, Allen Media Group, and they
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: call it what a time big?
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: They call it a time by, And it's a great question.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: So that's the business show right now. If we go
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: back and we approach it as business show, what do
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: we know? What we know is all of television is
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: a time buy, all of it right Cogate Comedy Hour, Okay,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Texico presents ge Theater with Ronald Reagan. Soap operas, soap operas.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Procter and Gamble created soap operas to sell soap. All
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: of television is a time buy. It's just everybody's used
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: to a big corporation buying the time and not an individual.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: WHOA what's going on here? This isn't Procter and Gamble,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: This is Byron Allen buying the time. So now remember
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: I have these assets, I have it close to two
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: thousand employees. Several hundred of them sell advertising time. So
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: I have relationships with seven hundred plus advertisers. So it's
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: easy for me to buy the time and then go
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: sell the advertising. And what I said to CBS from
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: a business point of view, and that's business show. I said, okay,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: let's look at this. I said, you have this twelve
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: thirty show. It was Corton and then after that was
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: a show called After Midnight. And I said, you guys
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: are spending thirty to forty million a year on the show, right,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: I happened to own ABCNBC, CBS, and Fox affiliates. I said,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: you're wasting time. After that show ends at one thirty
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: in the morning. You're handing me an audience that I
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: then go and run an infomercial and it's one eight
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: hundred spray on hair. You're giving me this huge audience
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: of to uses it. I need to use it, one
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: eight hundred spray on hair. Like you're spending forty million
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: bucks to hand me a bunch of people to say
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: here one eight hundred abs in fifteen minutes. I said,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: don't waste that money. Stop spending thirty forty million on
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: production and promotion and marketing, and I will save that
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: money and I will buy the time period from you
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: put on comics on Leach. So they put the show
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: on in September and then they're like, oh my god,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: the show's working, the show's winning the time period. I go, well,
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: why are you surprised, Why are you surprised it's winning
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: the time period. I'm bringing you the entire depth and
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: breadth of comedy.
• 52:30
  Speaker 6: Comedy has never lost.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: Comedy has never lost in comedy, never will. And comedy
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: has built everything that's great in media. Who built the
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: movie industry, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Loy, who built radio,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Bob Hope, George Burns, Grace Allen, Milton Burrow, who built television?
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: Who built those who built TV? Those same radio stars
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: who built cable? Oh wow, cable was built by you know,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, who built streaming, Eddie Murphy,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler. Everything that's great is
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: built by comedy. So we do a comedy, we do
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: a talk show that's only comedians, and they're coming in here.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: And I said, the other thing is you don't understand
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: the power of the people. You're living in a bubble
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: in a bubble, and you don't Because when I first
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: did the show and I shot like four or six
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: episodes of Comics on Leash, I went to the head
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: of Comedy Central and I said, look at this show.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: I think you should put it on Comedy Central. He
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: looked at it. He said, it's funny, but it's not
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: our kind of comedy. I go, well, there's only one
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: kind of comedy. I said, funny. He said no. He said,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: our audience young white boys with a bong on their
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: coffee table. That's what he said. That's our audience, young
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: white boys will have bong on their coffee table. And
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: I said, listen. I said, comedy is far greater than that,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: has far more depth than that. And I said, there's
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: so many unique points of views. And so that's why
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: I'm proud of the fact when you look at Comics
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: on Leish, I've had everybody on the show, young, oh, black, white, Jewish, Muslim, Asian, Hispanic, gay, disabled,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: everybody has come through and done that show. And I
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: love it because comedy is the great unifier. I love
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: the way Norman Lear used television and comedy. He introduced
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: each of these families to one of one to each other.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: He introduced the black family to America. He introduced it.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: He introduced us to the single mom in America. And
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: I believe it's tough. I believe. Without good times and
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: without the success of good Times and the success of
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: the Jeffersons, you don't get the Cosby's, and I don't
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: think and if you don't get good times, the Jeffersons
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: and the Cosby's, it's a stronger, it's a tougher leap
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: to the Obamas in the White House. You have to
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: introduce the black family to white America to say we're
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: just like each other with the saying he used the
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: power of television to say, what's the problem here? This
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: is we're the same. And I said, okay, I want
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: to use the power TV introduce these comedians. Listen to
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: their point of view. Listen to these people talk about
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: their lives and who they are, how you know they're gay,
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: and what it was like for them to come out,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: or what is it like for them to deal with
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: their weight, or what is it like to be a Muslim,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: to try and travel through the airport, or what is
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: it like to be Jewish and dealing.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: With this or that?
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Whatever? It is, this unique point of view to be
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: black and you're inner like I love it. You've got
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: the best minds and you're making us laugh and you're
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: making us connect, which is why I said, look, guys,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: twenty years ago when we started doing the show, I said,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: no politics, nothing racist or sexist or anti semitic. Just
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: be you know, be funny and talk about your life
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: and bring us together. And I've always made it a point.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: I said, you know, right when I started the show
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: twenty years ago, Vanity Fair had an article and it
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: was why women aren't funny? And I said, okay, we
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: will always have women on the show. Always. It has
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: to be a female comedian right next to me, right
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: next to me. And then you look at it and
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: you go, okay, women are the funniest in the game.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: Now you watch Nikki Glacier stole the Tom Brady ROAs.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Then you watch Cheryl underwill Cheryl Underwood steal the Kevin
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: Hart Rose. But it was never about our women funnier.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: Now it's will women be given an opportunity to shine
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: and show their talent and That's what I love about
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: the show. It's not really my show. It's our show.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: It's not my show. My name's on it. I'm helping
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: to organize it, but it's our show. It's our show
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: where we come together as comedians to make people laugh
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: who love to laugh and want to see unity. That's
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: why I'm like, no politics. I don't care who you
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: vote for. I don't care. That's not what we're gonna
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: do tonight. Because this world is hard. This world is harsh.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: This world is far more difficult than it should be.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: We position people to fail, not to succeed, We position
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: people to be crushed and just swept aside. I want
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: a world where your positioned to succeed. I want a
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: world where you where you have joy, where you have laughter,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: where you don't go to sleep with anxiety. I wanna
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: world where you wake up and every day is joyful
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: for you and you can't wait to get out there.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: That's the world that I'm trying to help create, and
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: the best way to do it is with laughter and
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: with comedy. It's not my show, it's your show.
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: When do you have the time for all of this,
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: with all the businesses that you run? Everything that you do.
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: When do you have the time to do time?
• 58:17
  Speaker 6: And you're still so connected to people, Like a lot
• 58:19
  Speaker 6: of people will get to the point where you are,
• 58:21
  Speaker 6: they get in that bubble, but you're still a business
• 58:24
  Speaker 6: for the people.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I am for the people. I mean, I've
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: always been that. That's how I you know, it's my
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: whole life since well I'm sixty five, fifty one years
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: of standing on a stage connecting with people. I still
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: do stand up right. I still go to the comedy
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: store in the improv and hang I was Dion. I
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: went to go see Dion and Cole. He brought me
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: up on stage and we had a black We have fun.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: I love Dion. He's one of my favorite human beings
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: on the planet, you know. And it's just I love
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: being connected. And for me, the other thing is I
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: feel it's so like okay, so low. Look, I get
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: into a boszi to put on television whatever I want
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: to put on TV. Why is it important that we
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: have a seat at the table. Did I what do
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: I put on TELEVI what did I put on TV?
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: I have on thirteen hours a day of television, thirteen
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: hours a day. No human being has ever accomplished that.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: But nine of those hours are court shows, Williams. Nine
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: of those hours nine different judges, as legal scholars, as
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: legal great minds. I have on two African American men,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: Judge Ross, Judge Matthis, two Latinas, and five African American women,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: including Ebony K. Williams who just got nominated for a
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: Critics Choice Award, Equal Justice, Equal Justice. Okay, so I
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: have on nine hours a day of black and brown excellence.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: Nobody else has put that on. When these other media
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: outlets had an opportunity to put on shows, they put
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: shows on with white male hosts and young black men
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: showing their butts, dancing and screaming, I'm not the baby daddy.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: The test came back, I'm not the baby daddy, I'm
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: not the and it's like, is that how you're gonna
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: depict me as a black man? That's not the Those
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: aren't the black men I grew up with. That wasn't
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: my granddaddy Leroy. That wasn't my granddaddy Charles. That wasn't
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: my daddy Alvin. Those men they were all over me,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: they were chasing me. Keeping My granddaddy used to sit
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: up on the porch, and when I went out to
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: play in Detroit, he watched me like a hawk because
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: he knew I could get in trouble because a lot
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: of the kids in my neighborhood ended up dead or
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: in prison. So he was straight up boom, you can
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: go outside. I'm gonna sit right here. I'm gonna drinak
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: this beer, and I'm gonna watch you when those street
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: lights start the flicker. I want your black butt up
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: on this porch. Those aren't the men I grew up with,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: So I'm not gonna let you depict them like that.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you depict them as to who they were, hardworking, brave, kind, generous, loving, protective.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna show images of who we really are.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: That's the power of TV, that's the power of podcasting radio.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: You're sharing these stories that nobody else is sharing. Nobody's
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: opening up the mic and saying, here's who we are.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna paint you as the drug dealer. I'm
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: just gonna paint you as the one robbing people. No no, no, no,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: no no no no. There's so much excellence in our community,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna make sure it shines that's the power
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: of having that seat at the table.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: You Buzfeed as well.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I bought BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed and huff Post and Tasty.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: You know, I felt it was very important we Yeah,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: I bought them all. Now they're already there, they're up
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: and running, So yeah, I bought them off. So you know, listen,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: I think it's it's important as black people that we
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: are in the publicly traded market, you know markets, you know,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: publicly traded companies. That's where you can create great wealth,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: great wealth, enormous wealth. You're talking about one hundred trillion
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: dollars out there in the public trade, publicly traded markets.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: So BuzzFeed is publicly traded. And they got into some
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: financial trouble and they announced that they were about to
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: go bankrupt, and I just said, okay. I called them
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: up quickly. I said, here's the deal I would like
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: to do. And I said, I want to control fifty
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: two percent of the company. I want to control the board.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: And I said, here's one hundred and twenty million dollars
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: and here's how I want to structure it. I'll give
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: you twenty million now cash and a promissory note of
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: one hundred million dollars at five percent interest, doing payable
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: in five years, and I'm buying forty million shares. I
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: bought forty million shares at three dollars a share. That's
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty million.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: I went to buy the forty million shares. The stock
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: was only trading at like sixty to seventy cents a share,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: so when it got announced, it jumped up to like
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: a buck thirty or whatever, buck forty or whatever it is.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: So me putting one hundred and twenty million on the
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: table and saying, I believe in my ability, and I
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: believe in myself and my management team. I believe in
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: the brands BuzzFeed and huff Posts and Tasty. I believe
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: that we will get this three dollars. We'll get past
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: us three dollars a share well within the five year period.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: But I'm investing in these brands, and I see the
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: opportunity is to use AI to enable us to do
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: more streaming, not AI generated content. But I also invested
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: about one hundred and fifty million to do something called
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: local Now, which uses artificial intelligence and proprietory software to
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: curate stream and you know, and aggregate super hyper local news, weather, sports,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: and traffic, geo fence to the user's zip code, and
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: there's nothing like it. And I've won streamer twice against Netflix, Amazon, Hulu,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: Disney Plus, and I said, look, I want to take
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: the BuzzFeed brand and the huff Post brand and put
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: them in the streaming business. And now with the power
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: of local. Now married with BuzzFeed and huff Posts, they
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: will have over thirty thousand movies, TV shows, documentaries. They'll
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: have almost one thousand fast channels, including Kevin Hart, Johnny Cartson,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: People Magazine, Architectural Digests. I've put about three four hundred
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: television stations there with their local news. We're going to
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: invest heavily in podcasting, so we will aggregate all everything
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: we can. And I've said to the team, first order business,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: we have to be number one in podcasting and we
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: have to invest heavily there and aggregate everything podcasting. BuzzFeed
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: is one of the great brands that's twenty years old.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: And I'm really excited that Jonah Peretti, who started BuzzFeed
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: twenty years ago and some of the very first viral
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: videos to ever occur, he is staying on board to
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: be president of BuzzFeed AI. So he is going to
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: be leading our team on AI and innovation. And I
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: couldn't be happier because we as black folks, we have
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: to have a seat at the table as it relates
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: to technology, content and the intersection of technology and content
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: and artificial intelligence.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 5: Do you see AI as the next industrial revolution or
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: the next wealth gap?
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: I think it's going to close the wealth gap. I
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: mean it's closing the wealth gap now. I mean, look
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: at your success and how you're able to use the Internet. Now. See,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: we as black folks, we've always been cut off because
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: we couldn't get to the audience. Now with the Internet,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: we have a global platform to get to the audience.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: And that's why I said, from this moment on, once
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: I invested in BuzzFeed, I said, from this moment on,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: we are now chasing YouTube. Now, YouTube is amazing. YouTube
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: is phenomenal. But you have coke and you have pepsi,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: and they're both in my opinion, they're both good. So
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: I said, if you look at most of the content
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: on YouTube, ninety nine point nine percent of it is
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: non exclusive. And what I would say to the YouTube
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: creators put it at YouTube, collect that check, and we're
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: gonna create We're gonna have a platform you could put
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: it up a BuzzFeed and collect a check there. I
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: think two checks are better than one, and so you know,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: we will also offer you that same opportunity to take
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: user generated content and build on what's already there at
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: BuzzFeed and huff Posts. We're not looking to change it.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: We're looking whatever they have. You love the puzzles and
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: you have you love the quizzies, and you love this
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: and the games, we love that too. We're gonna keep that,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: but we're also gonna include you so you can provide
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: your content user generated content. We're also gonna provide you,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: you know, movies and TV shows and documentaries. Now, if
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: you look at it, the Internet is the great and
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: technology is a great way for everyone to get very wealthy.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: Because if you are talented, if you have a great idea,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: if you have something good, you have global distribution, and
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: you are gonna have people. You have over eight billion
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: people on the planet, you're chasing over four and a
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: half billion connected devices. Your chances of success are far
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: greater than they've ever been, and your chances for wealth.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: It's enormous. So look at your success. I mean the
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: doors that have opened because of the Internet and streaming
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: and Netflix, and for you to be the number one
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: podcaster on Netflix, well, guess what. Netflix spends twenty billion
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: dollars a year. Okay, they're gonna have to keep you happy. Okay,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: that's great, that's huge opportunity. That's great wealth, great what
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: multi generational wealth.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: All rooted in what we do here on the radios.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: The whole foundation and the whole thing is like, you know,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: we as black folks, now we're gonna have we have
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: to go to ownership and ownership of a publicly traded companies.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: That's a huge pathway.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: So I have the ability of BuzzFeed to issue another
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: six hundred and fifty million shares. It's a publicly traded company.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: It's a great way for the community to invest in
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: businesses in publicly traded companies Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: You know, we don't get access to deal flow. We're
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: not in the country clubs. We don't know the next
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: big deal. But we can get in there through our
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: investments in Netflix and Google and Microsoft for whatever it
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: may be, right, publicly traded companies, But I also think
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: it's important that we own and control our own publicly
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: traded companies, and then that way folks can have access
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: to deal flow that's not coming across their desk. That's
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: how we build. Look at this company, iHeartRadio. iHeartRadio is
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: the largest radio station group in America, the largest podcast
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: publisher in America. Fifty two weeks ago was two hundred million,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: two hundred million dollars. You could buy all the outstanding
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: shares for two hundred million dollars. Today it's eight hundred million,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: four times your money in a year. You just tell me,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: ten thousand becomes forty thousand in a year. I'm not
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: saying by our heart stock. I'm just saying that's if
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: you look at the Forbes four hundred list, a lot
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: of that wealth they're publicly traded. If you look at it,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: that's where a lot of their wealth comes from. And
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: just this company alone, I'm sitting here and in four
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: in one year, I'm watching it go up from two
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: hundred in market cap to eight hundred market cap, four
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: times your money. People are doing that all day long,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: just not enough of us are doing it. You know,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: this is how white America has enormous wealth. White America
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: is investing, investing, not spending. And as you invest, your
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: money compounds and grows. And we have to think business,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: business show. We have to think publicly traded. We have
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: to access those markets. We have to invest in companies
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: that are growing. We know what's growing. You know, Black
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: folks know what's going to be hot before anybody because
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: we're making it hot. We're making it hot. We know
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: and people are like, whoa man, they're selling a lot
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: of these. Yeah, because I'm wearing it. So you know,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: how do I invest in this? We know what's going
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: to be strong long before most people.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 6: Do you think, like with all of the show cancelations
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 6: and what you're saying, right, do you think that people
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 6: are going to start feeling like local news or in
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 6: local news affiliates are more important than you know, sometimes
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 6: they devalue local news. But what I'm hearing you saying
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 6: is like that not only was that your foundation, but
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 6: keeping that the main thing and getting right to the
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 6: people like local news does is what helps you grow
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 6: your business. Like, will that change how we think about
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 6: local news?
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: No?
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: I think, well, I love that question. I think look,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, that's the business that
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: we're in. I'm in the local news business based on
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: my billion dollar investment in ABCNBC, CBS, and Fox affiliates
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: around the country. I just sold all my Fox affiliates.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: I'm in the weather news business, and I'm in the
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: sports business. When you own ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: you get NFL football because ninety nine point nine percent
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: of the football games NFL games are on those those
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: on the big networks. Ninety seven of the top one
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: hundred television shows NFL football. So it's local news, weather, news,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: and sports. That's the business I'm in. Every day. People
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: are always gonna wake up and they're gonna want their
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: local news. They're gonna want their weather. That's why I
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: bought the Weather Channel. And they're gonna want their true religion,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: NFL football, NBA basketball, college sports. That's why my business
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: is stronger than one thousand acres of garlic, okay, because
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: you're never gonna wake up and not want local news.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: You're never gonna wake up and not want to know
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: what's going on with the weather, and you are, for shit.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: You are going to watch the NFL football game, college
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: sports and NBA game you're going to watch it, and
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: I'm presenting that to you. And what are we doing
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: as we go and we expand and we go and
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: we buy BuzzFeed and we buy huff Posts. That's news, right, tasty,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: that's food. You know, it's one of the biggest reasons
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: people go to the internet and search food recipes. So
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: I think that that's why. I also went and got
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: hundreds of television stations to put their local news at
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: local Now are streaming app local now, so local now
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: is free. I had dinner one night with Reid Hastings,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: the founder of Netflix, and I said, read what keeps
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: you up at night? And he said YouTube? I go YouTube.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: He goes, yeah, Byron, he goes, if they start delivering
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: premium content for free, how do I get people to
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: pay me whatever xyz per month? And I was like,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: got it. So I said, that's what I'm going to do.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: I'm going to aggregate premium content and I'm gonna make
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: it free. That's the world's favorite word, free, free and streaming.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: And we, as black folks, we are the leaders in
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: consuming free streaming. I'm like, Okay, that's what I'm gonna do.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go in here, and I'm going to
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: aggregate this content. I'm gonna make it free, and I'm
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: gonna really emphasize that connection with the community.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: I know you've been you've been a f a while,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: so we I got a couple more questions. No, No, you
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: fight a lot of corporate fights, right, Yeah.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 5: And I know you reached the settlement with McDonald's over
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 5: the ten million dollar lawsuit that you filed in twenty
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 5: twenty one. You said that they discriminated against black owned
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 5: media companies. Like, yeah, they discriminated against black owed media companies.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 5: Why do you think corporate America is comfortable profiting off
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 5: black culture but hesitant to invest in black ownership.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: You know, obviously I can't speak on the McDonald's settlement
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: because that was a ten billion dollar lawsuit and part
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: of the settlement is don't ever speak about it again. Yeah,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: here's what I would say. Here's what I would say
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: about white corporate America in general. So, the greatest trade
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: deficit in America is the trade deficit between white corporate
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: America and black America. And until we close that trade deficit,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: we cannot achieve one America, which is what Martin Luther
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: King died for he was attempting to achieve one America.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: You know, Correta Scott King was a friend of mine,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: and I wanted to learn a lot about Martin Luther King,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: and I really wanted to learn from her point of view.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: And she said to me, Byron, they didn't kill my
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: Martin over the I Have a Dream speech. They killed
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: him over the speech that he gave at Stanford University
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: in February of sixty eight. They murdered him two months later.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: In that speech, he gave that speech which was the
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: Other America, and he said in that speech, there are
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: two of Americas. One America has access to opportunity and
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: economic inclusion, and two Americas will not survive. We must
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: achieve one America. At that point, he had already achieved
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: civil rights. He was pushing for economic inclusion and education
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: for all Americans, especially poor white Americans. And they were like,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: if this dude pulls together poor white people and black people,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: we got a problem.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: That was the next model was the Poor People's.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: Watch That it Yeah, he was going to deliver half
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: a million poor people to the nation's capital and I
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: am I'm making a movie about that right now. And
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: that they said. The generals said, if he delivers half
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: a million poor people to the nation's capital this there
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: could be an overthrow that he could overthrow the They
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: could be an uprising, he could overthrow the country. He
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: cannot deliver half a million poor people, mainly white people,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: to the nation's capital. We must kill him where he starts. So,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: you know, Averra Duvenet and I we're working on She's
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: written on the amazing screenplay and we're writing about the
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: whole trial of what happened and how seventy people walked
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: into a courtroom and testified as to what they did
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: to organize the murder of Martin Luther King. And after
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: twelve jurors, six men, six women, six blacks, six whites
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: listened to this testimony, a case no one knows about
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: that actually happened in nineteen ninety nine, the verdict came
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: back that the United States government murdered Martin Luther King. Wow,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: that's the verdict. That's a trial nobody knows about. So
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: Ava has written an amazing screenplay. We're making a movie
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: about it. But in that speech, he said, there are
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: two Americas, and we have to achieve one America and
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: that's the issue. And I remember Coreta Scott King telling
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: me that, and I said, you and Martin because they
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: murdered him at age thirty nine. I said, you and Martin,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: you did more than enough. It's our turn this generation
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: to achieve the fourth and final chapter. Because she said, Byron,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: as black people, we had three major challenges. Number one,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: end slavery. Number two. Right, she had number one. That's
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: a big one. Achieve, you know, end slavery. Number two,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: achieve civil rights. Right number three, she said, and she
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: starts to like she starts to tear up, you know,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: she gets she got really emotional, you know, when she said,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: you know these are because she grew up with this
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: part that really she was born picking cotton. She picked
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: cotton as a little girl, and she used to sit
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: on the porch and listen to them talk about who
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: got hung that she knew. So it was number one.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it was number one, end slavery. Number two,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: end Jim Crow. That was really personal because of the
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: little girl she worried every day about her father being lynched.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: Number three achieved civil rights. And then she choked up again,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: like she choked up about her father. She said, number
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: four achieve economic inclusion. And I said, we will deal
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: with the fourth and final chapter, economic inclusion. So she said,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: she laid it out, slavery, Jim Crow, civil rights. And
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: it was simple. It was clear as day when she
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: laid it out to me. It's never been black or white.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: It's never been black or white. We've always thought black
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: and white. It's always been green. Green was the color,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: not black, not white. Why did they bring us here
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: from Africa? They brought us here from Africa to build
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: the wealth, the greatest wealth on planet Earth. Why did
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: they start the genocide against us? Because we were freed
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: and they did not want to compete with us for
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: the green So what did they do? They started the
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: economic genocide by using you will not have access to education,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: no education, you won't have access to economic inclusion, bank
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: loans money. That's not predatory economic conclusion, you won't have it.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: That's genocide. That's economic genocide. I will squeeze you out
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: through lack of education and lack of economic inclusion. It's
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: economic genocide. And I've always said, oh, absolutely, But it
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: was about the whole thing is money, money, money, don't
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: don't compete with me for the money. And if you
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: don't have an education, you're not gonna compete with me.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: And if you don't have access to capital that's not predatory,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: you're not gonna compete with me. So it's it's really
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: I brought you here to make me rich, not to compete.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: Why would I bring you here to come pete. I'm
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: not giving you any of this great American economic pie.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: You are here to make me rich and to be
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: a consumer. So you have to decold all of that.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: And I've always said, they kill us in the you know,
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: in the in the in the schoolroom by making sure
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: we don't get a proper education, And they kill us
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: in the boardroom by making sure we don't have economic inclusion,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: and they kill us in the courtroom by making sure
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: we don't have equal justice. Long before they kill us
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: in the streets. More brothers and sisters are taken out
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: in that schoolroom, in that boardroom, and in that courtroom
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: than you can ever imagine, far greater than the ones
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: taken out in the streets. Those are the ones we
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: see in those of the we we witness, And that's
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: horribly violent, But it's equally as as violent when you
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: say I'm gonna make sure you don't have a proper education,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: and then go, oh, look at that. I got all
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: these young brothers and sisters doing smashing grabs and running
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: into stores and stealing bags for fifty cents, made for China,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: made in China for fifty cents, And I'm like, I
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: don't want to hear about your crime. Don't talk to
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: me about crime until you lean in and you invest
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: in education, and you make sure each and every one
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: of these kids get a proper education. And then you
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: make sure each and every last one of these kids
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: have a pathway to be integrated into corporate America, and
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: you make sure each and every last one of these
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: kids are not getting thirty percent longer sentences than their
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: white counterparties. Do that, and then we can talk about crime.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: But you and I both know you have designed the
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: system for us to fail. You and I both know
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: you make more money offer incarceration than education, and you
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: have structured it so that we fail and not succeed
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: and don't compete. So let's talk about crime when you
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: educate every kid in this country to the fullest extent.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: Look at my life. I'm not sitting here. My mother
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: got pregnant with me when she was sixteen. A black
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: girl getting pregnant in nineteen sixty with a black baby
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: in April sixty one. Who's betting on that. But what
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: changed the game was her brilliance. She got into UCLA
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: and got her master's degree. And then what changed the
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: game was because she went into that parallel, she's able
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: to expose her black child to a Johnny Carson firsthand.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: If that doesn't happen, I'm not sitting here with this
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: success and controlling the Weather Channel and billions and billions
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: of dollars in assets in CBS Late Night. Education's everything,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: but it's designed for us to fail, not succeed. And
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: by the way, that's not just Black America. That's most
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: of America. Most of America is struggling and should not
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: be because we're a small tribe. We're only three hundred
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: and thirty million people out of eight billion. There are
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: other tribes around this world who see a world we
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: don't exist. We have to become one, as the Great
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: Martin Luther King taught us, in order for us to succeed.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: If we don't come together as one great American tribe,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: as the Great Martin Luther King and coretasc Got King
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: taught us we will perish. You're watching us implode because
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: we are divided and because we're not positioned to fail.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: I need everybody to be their best, and I need
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: everybody to be their best for the American flag and
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: for the human race. It's important you bring your a game.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: It's important you are positioned, that you here and you
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: are bringing everything you have. That's why God puts you
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: here to shine, not fade, to be great, not suffer,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: to flourish, not flounder. That's why you're here. You're here
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: to contribute. You have something to contribute. You're special, you're unique.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: You have to step up, and we kind of get
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: out of your way and make sure you can step up.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: We gotta sometimes help you up. Everybody needs help. I
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: need help, even to this day. Everybody needs help. So
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: that's what I believe is so important that we lean
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: in and that we hold people accountable. And all I
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: said to white corporate America is you can't have a
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: situation where you take money out of our community and
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: you don't do business with our community. We're not a charity,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: We're not a handout. You don't hint, we're not because
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: when white corporate Maria it looks at Black America, they go, well,
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: I don'ate, I'm not a donation. Why do that? I
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: don't care. Don't take photos with little black babies. I
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: don't need all that. What's the business you're doing with us?
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: You know? So if we're fifteen percent of the population,
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: I want your budget, your AD budget to go fifteen
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: percent of that AD budget to go to black owned media. Okay,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: I can tell you where Black America will be ten
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: years from now, twenty years from now, thirty years from now,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: forty years from now with one data point, what's the
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: black student population at the major universities that white corporate
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: America recruits from. And if we are at one percent
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: two percent, which is what we are at best, then
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: nothing will change in Black America.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: You have to appreciate the Asian community. Brilliant. They sued
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: Harvard to get more Asian kids into Harvard standing ovation, brilliant.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: What are we suing? What universities are we suing to
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: get more Black kids to be more commensurate with our
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: population in this country? When will I be comfortable with
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: these universities when we are fifteen percent of the student
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: population that white corporate America recruits from. That's the game changer.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 4: So what is what is your outlook on I know
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 4: you gotta go your outlook going.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: I don't have to go anywhere. I'm hanging out with you.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 4: What is your outlook on hbc USING.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm a big investor in HBCUs. I am one.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: I am the largest. You know, I control more HBCU
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: sports than anybody. I control like ninety seven percent of
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: all HBCU sports. What I did was is I looked
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: at the HBCUs. Yeah, I started HBCU go. And so
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: I went and started buying the sports rights from these colleges.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: And I said, look, this is crazy, Like we are
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: the best talent out out there. But you know, Dion
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: Sanders said to me, Byron, he said, I'm mowing the
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: lawn at Jackson State, owing the lawn. We have rat
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: infested practice facilities, okay. And I'm like, okay, this is ridiculous.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: So I went and bought the sports rights, started producing
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: the games, putting them on broadcast television, putting them on
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: our cable network, degree oh, putting them on our streaming platform.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: And I'm investing more and more in HBCUs.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 3: Now, as you mentioned, you mentioned, you know businesses going
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 3: to the top tier schools, right, and you say more
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 3: Black students need to go to those top tier students,
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 3: kind of like Asian students.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: No, no, I'm and that's not instead of our black schools.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: I'm saying that's not instead of I'm saying you can't.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: Our schools only have so much capacity. Right, we have
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: one hundred and seven historically black colleges and universities. We
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: only have so much capacity. But what I'm also saying
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: is you have these other schools where we, as black
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: folks were only one or two percent. Right, we need
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: to be closer. I want everything commensurate with what we represent.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: I want fifteen percent of your ad budgets to go
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: to black home media. I want fifteen percent of those
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: chairs in these schools to go to black students. Okay,
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: this is what you know. When I went to Obama
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: and you know and people you know, and I and
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: I really do love Obama, right, I do love the brother,
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: and I have enormous respect for him. And I didn't
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: say a word when he was first term. When he
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: became second term, I said listen up, brother, I need
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: a couple of things from you. And this is when
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: he and I, this is when I became critical of him.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: And I said, look, you control two things that are
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: easy to do. All you have to do is say
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: to the banks, hey, banks, you're not lending money to
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: black people. And I'm going to audit you, and I'm
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: going to see if you're lending money to black people.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: And you will see that black people can't get home loans,
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: car loans, business loans, student loans. That's important. Just say that,
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: Just say you're gonna audit and make them live up
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: to the laws that are on the books. And I said,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: I only need one other thing from you. The government
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: has a one trillion dollar government worker pension fund, a
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: pension fund of government worker money. It's a trillion dollars.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: It's a t not a million, not a billion, it's
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: a trillion plus from people who worked at the government.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: I said, I want fifteen percent of that money allocated
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: to African American investors, one hundred and fifty billion to
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: go and invest in you and you and you and you.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: And I said, if you take that one hundred and
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: fifty billion dollars, that should be allocated to the African
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: American community for investment and marry it with banks. Overnight,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: the black community has the ability to buy a trillion
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: dollars worth of businesses that one fifty of equity and
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: another you know eight fifty or so of bank loans
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: and carry from sell financing. That puts us. That changes
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: the game. That's the fourth and final chapter of Black America.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: Economic Conclusion. Number one Slavery end it. Number two Jim
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: Crow ended, number three civil rights, achieve it and number
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: four Economic conclusion. That's the fourth chapter. And we can't
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: do it without education. We can't do it without access
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: to capital. That's not predatory. We have to be owners.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: The way we were in Africa, we owned it. We
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: have to be the same owners here in America.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: You know what, I know, what you're saying is true.
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, I know say it iss tue because it's true.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 5: But you know, when you look at the Supreme Court
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 5: ending affirmative action and college admissions in twenty twenty three,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 5: and then you see you know, black students at top schools,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 5: the percentage of Black students at top schools dropping because
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 5: of that, Yeah, you know they want to.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: Keep us out of the Absolutely, absolutely, because that's the
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: pathway to success in economic conclusion. That's it. You know,
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: it's like it's a game jail. Look at my CFO.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: He went to a HBCU, he went to an HPCU,
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: he went to Hampton. That's okay, So he went to
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: the best one. You went there, there you go, there
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: you go. So Chris Malone went to an HPCU, but
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: he also went to Harvard and got his NBA. But
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: I met him when he was at a private equity
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: firm managing billions of dollars. He loaned me the money
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: to buy the Weather Channel. Now would he have gotten
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: that job if he didn't have that Harvard as well.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: So it was great that his pedigree and his foundation
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: is an HBCU Hampton. But it's also great that that
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: NBA is from Harvard. Boom. He's ushering into a private
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: equity firm. He's sitting in a room where they're talking
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: about moving billions.
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 2: Of dollars, just giving people the game.
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: By it it is a game.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: You're telling him how to play. I don't.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: It's and this is how you and you can't play
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: the game. I'm not here to play the game. I'm
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: here to own the game again. If you play the game,
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: it's rigged for you to lose. If you own the game,
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: then you own the game. Every day I wake up,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: I'm about owning the game. What can I buy today?
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: Because when I buy it, I control it. And when
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: I control it, then it's gonna go the way it
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: should go. Black images will be better, Black images will
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: be will be elevated in a powerful, uplifting way. Right
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: when I trusted my white counterparts to do it. I'm
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: dancing around talking about look at this DNA test. You
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: check out this DNA all right, baby, I got away
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: with this one.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: Alright.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've never heard of a condoms. That's why I'm
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: worried right now. Oh yeah, baby, No, that's not that's
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: not it, baby, that's not it. We own the game
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: if you and why aren't you gonna own the game?
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: And that's what the internet does. I'm so proud of
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: all of these acts out here. Jay Z and you know,
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: and Beyonce and Drake and Kendrick Lamar like says like,
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be billionaires. Why are you gonna be billionaires?
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: Because you're direct to the consumer. People are gonna download
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: that music. They're gonna go straight to you. They don't
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: need anybody. You're gonna be a billionaire you because they're
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: gonna come to you. Because they love your intellectual thinking,
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: they love your critical thinking. They're gonna come to you.
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: You have four and a half billion connected devices, and
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: you're real and you're authentic, and you're lifting us up.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: You're it. This is important. This is our moment, this
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: is our moment to invest. I'm like gonna sit there
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: and I said, you know, I know if I buy
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: a publicly traded company, others in our community will start
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: thinking publicly traded and they're gonna grow them and they're
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: gonna they're gonna invest in them. And it's a pathway
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: for us to own a piece of something as a community,
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: whether it's a publicly traded company I control, or it's
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: a publicly traded company you control, or another one that
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: you like. You know, you'll wake up one day you'll
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: be the largest stockholder in iHeart. A year ago, for
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: twenty million dollars, you would have been the largest stockholder
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: in I Heart. It's a different feeling when you walk
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: in this building and you say I'm on ten percent
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: of this place. It's a different vibe. Next thing, you know,
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: like I wouldn't mind sitting on the board, it's a
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: different vibe. God knows him making a bunch of money
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: off of you. Why not have a seat on the board.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: Why not have equity?
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 5: You should be on the board of Black effect by around.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 2: No, no, never mind, we're talking about it.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: I'll do anything to support you. But I just want
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: us to think that way. We have to beat education banks.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: You gotta lean in on here. Equity. Own it, own
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: it with scale and even smaller, whatever size, whatever it is,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: just own it. And by the way, we are the largest.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: We are the largest employer of black people ourselves. We
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: employ ourselves. I think about my grandfather. I'm like, yeah,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: all those kids, we're grandkids. We are all working at the
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: skating ring. That's how we took care of ourselves. We
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: invest and it's important that we look at it that way.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: So when I went after these corporations and I filed
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: fifty billion in lawsuits, fifty billion dollars in lawsuits, and
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: I'm undefeated. Wow, and I'm undefeated. Let me say that again.
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: I'm undefeated. But what is it? Because Coretascot King said
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: to me, Byron, the truth is our greatest weapon. And
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: if we bring the truth like you do every day,
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: she said, if you bring the truth, if we bring
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: the truth, we will always win. What is it about
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: me that a young black man at that point suing
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: the biggest corporations in the world for fifty billion dollars
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: and you couldn't get the case dismissed? What is it
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: about me? I'll tell you what it is. I'm just
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: the first black person to come along with the Constitution
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: willing to invest tens and tens and tens of millions
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: of dollars in legal fees to hold you accountable based
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: on what the great Coreta Scott King taught me the
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: fourth and final chapter Economic conclusion, and bring the truth.
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: So I brought the truth. I said, hey, you're not
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: doing business with us, and you know how you can
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: get my case dismissed. Walk somebody black into this courtroom
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: and say you're wrong, I'm doing business with her. Whooa,
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: you couldn't find that black unicorn. So now my case
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: is not dismissed, and we get traction and we win Downtown,
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: and then you take it to the ninth Circuit and
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: we win there, and then you take it to the
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court says, okay, well this
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: law stands. And then you get to the table and
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: you settle. Why did you settle? You settle because I
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: brought the truth. Do business with us the way we
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: do business with you, and then we can have one America.
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: And then when we have one America with education and
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: economic conclusion, guess what, you're gonna have to turn all
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: those prisons into wear houses for boxes and not humans.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: Release all the black men and women because now you've
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: educated them. Now you've given them access to capital, and
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: now we're part of the American fiber. And now the
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: great American tribe is even greater because every American is
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: positioned to bring their excellence.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 4: We appreciate you for joining us. You got to come
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 4: back more off and you got not to do I.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: Like these State of the unions.
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: You will come back once twice a day.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 2: You gotta come back to these State of the unions.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: I love you, guys, I love your success. I'm gonna
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: tell everybody Netflix twenty billion dollars I want ten billion
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: to go to them. Damn it, there we go, twenty up.
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: Your twenty billion dollar budget. I want ten to come here.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: I know where you're gonna invest in.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 5: Comics under least starts this Friday, May twenty second, at
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 5: eleven thirty five on CBS.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: You're gonna laugh your butt off. I'm gonna tell you
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: right now, before you watch the show, put on your
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: adult diapers because you're gonna peel on yourself.
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 4: Well, it's The Breakfast Club Byron Allen. Good Morning, every.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: Day a week. Click your ass up The Breakfast Club.
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: Finish for y'all. Dum