Picture Credit score: Alex Const / CC by 2.0
A gaggle of celebrities, together with 50 Cent, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kenya Barris, are every tendering a proposal for a majority stake in BET Networks.
A number of celebrities, together with rapper 50 Cent, basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal, and TV producer Kenya Barris, need to pitch a proposal for a majority stake in Paramount International’s BET Media Group.
The trio has teamed up with Group Black, an organization aiming to invest in and develop Black-owned media companies, personal fairness agency CVC Capital Companions, and Genuine Manufacturers Group, which develops and licenses manufacturers for retail use.
Advertisers have elevated their spending with minority-owned retailers inside the previous few years. One in every of Group Black’s targets is to extend the quantity of Black-owned media by buying high-profile media manufacturers, together with Vice Media and BDG. Nevertheless, offers with these manufacturers have but to materialize.
BET Media Group consists of the VH1 and BET cable networks and the BET+ streaming service. Paramount International is seeking to promote non-core property, together with its majority stake in BET, because it allocates extra sources to its streaming service, Paramount+.
Different celebrities whose curiosity in BET Media Group has been piqued embody actor-producer Tyler Perry (joined with personal fairness agency Ariel Options, a subsidiary of asset administration firm Ariel Investments) and musician Sean “Diddy” Combs (joined with funding agency HarbourView Fairness Companions) and his firm, Revolt.
Media entrepreneur Byron Allen, whose Allen Media Broadcasting owns property together with the Climate Channel and a number of other native TV stations, has expressed curiosity in buying a majority stake in BET.
However potential bidders like Tyler Perry and Kenya Barris may appear extra doubtless candidates, given their present ties with BET. Perry owns a minority stake in BET+, whereas Barris holds a minority stake in BET Studios, the model’s manufacturing arm.
Black Leisure Tv was based in 1980 by Robert Johnson with monetary backing from cable mogul John Malone. BET was the primary nationwide programming service primarily focusing on Black viewers. Viacom, now Paramount International, acquired BET in 2000 for $2.3 billion in inventory — and assumed its $570 million in debt.
