Byron Allen Resubmits $3.5 Billion Bid For Paramount Global’s BET, VH1

Anthony D'Alessandro, Jill Goldsmith and Dade Hayes
·2 min read

Deadline has confirmed that Byron Allen is taking another run at BET Media Group in a $3.5 billion bid sent to Paramount Global for BET and VH1. The offer followed a report that Paramount is in talks to sell BET to a management-led investor group.

Paramount put BET Media Group fielded offers for BET earlier this year, receiving bids from Allen, Tyler Perry and others, but took it off the table after determining that the offers weren’t high enough.

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During an event in Atlanta, Perry said that he wasn’t a fan of the process. “I was disappointed about it for a number of reasons. The way it happened was disrespectful in a lot of ways,” he said, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Allen is said to have resubmitted his bid when he learned of the potential deal with BET CEO Scott Mills and Chinh Chu, a former Blackstone executive who runs New York-based CC Capital Partners. Bloomberg first reported those conversations, citing a possible price tag of just under $2 billion.

The news comes as Par also has been in talks about a broader merger with Warner Bros Discovery.

BET Media is composed of the linear networks, BET+, BET Studios — which launched in 2021 with partners Kenya Barris, Rashida Jones and Aaron Rashon Thomas — and VH1, which was moved under the BET umbrella last year. Founded by Robert Johnson in 1980, BET aka Black Entertainment Television was the first cable channel to cater to Black audiences. It was acquired by Viacom in 2001 in a deal worth $3 billion. There was some excitement in the black community about the asset returning to a Black-owned media company.

Allen Media Group declined to comment.

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