I'm not surprised. I am surprised that Byron wasn't bumrushing the studio doors or ringing down the phone line trying to get in on some of that Blonde topless action.
The Palm Beach post has a more in-depth article on his business proposition. It looks like he is still trying to get this $2.2 Billion in cash from a bank. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks maybe some ultra-conservative corporation has paid off Byron to release his bogus statement as a way of distracting everyone from what's really going down. Sort of like everyone being focused on Byron while Clear Channel swoops in and seals the deal. Anyhow, here is the Palm Beach Post article:
TV personality sets sights on pursuing Paxson bid
By Stephanie Horvath
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 09, 2005
The news on Wednesday that a television personality was trying to raise $2.2 billion to buy Paxson Communications Corp. sent the West Palm Beach company's stock soaring.
It also left a lot of people scratching their heads and asking if Byron Allen, a businessman and former host of a forgettable 1980s television show called Real People, was a viable buyer for the ailing broadcast firm. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that sources close to the situation said Allen wasn't considered a serious bidder.
Allen brushed off the comments, saying he's used to being doubted. In 1993, when he started Entertainment Studios, his television production and syndication company in Los Angeles, he said few people thought it would sell its first show. Twelve years later, it produces 15 shows and has never canceled one.
"All my career, people have doubted me," Allen told The Palm Beach Post Friday. "I don't go by what others think or say."
Allen is trying to raise $2.2 billion from Credit Suisse First Boston and several unnamed private equity firms to buy Paxson. If he's successful, he wants to turn it into an urban network with strong sitcoms, movies and dramas that will draw viewers away from UPN and the WB.
"Urban is something that's more encompassing than just black," he said. "We don't consider what BET and TV One are doing as our target.... I'm looking for The Bernie Mac Show to be on our network."
Allen said he's interested in Paxson because of it's strong distribution system.
"You have 60 television stations, 45 in the top 50" markets, he said. "It is something that would be very difficult to replicate."
Allen said his financing plans include money for programming, which is notoriously expensive. He still doesn't have financial backing and doesn't know when he'll be able to make an offer for Paxson.
If he buys the company, he won't necessarily move it from West Palm Beach. "It's a beautiful area," he said.
Allen now apparently has competition for Paxson. The Firm, a Beverly Hills talent agency, is putting together a bid, the New York Post reported Friday. The report said that The Firm had backing from Bank of America and Boston private equity companies Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners.
Paxson, The Firm, Bank of America and the private equity firms all would not comment on the report. NBC Universal, which owns a 32 percent stake in Paxson, also would not comment.
Friday's news sent Paxson's stock up 23 cents a share to close at $1.38. Before the potential bids were announced, the stock had been hovering around its 52-week low of 50 cents.
Todd Morgan, a bond analyst at CIBC, said that when Lowell "Bud" Paxson decided in March to stop looking for ways to turn the ailing television company around, that opened the firm up to potential buyers.
"They said, 'We're going to kind of focus on our current operations.' That's a door open for someone to rush in and approach the company with other plans," Morgan said.
Allen said he wasn't fazed by The Firm's potential bid. "A number of people are looking at this distribution system. I fully anticipate a half-dozen players at the table," he said. "I have a great deal of faith in ourselves. We're aggressively pursuing it."
Paige Albiniak, a contributing editor for Broadcasting and Cable magazine, said she's concerned the Paxson deal might be Allen's undoing.
"Deals like this Paxson one could really break a person," she said. "It's the possibility of biting off more than you can chew."
Though Allen's current title is businessman, he started out as a comic and television personality. He played as a child in NBC's studios, where his mother worked as a page. He often hung out on the vacant Tonight Show set. He started working the Los Angeles comedy club circuit as a teenager. At age 18, he performed on the Tonight Show, becoming one of the youngest comedians ever to have appeared on the show.
That same year he was hired to host Real People, a 1980s television show that traveled across the country highlighting the unusual lives of normal folks. In the early 1990s, he got his own late-night talk show, The Byron Allen Show. That show was canceled in 1992, and the next year Allen started Entertainment Studios Corp., his programming and syndication company, from his dining room table. Allen started by producing a show that would become Entertainers With Byron Allen, in which he interviewed celebrities.
"I called 1,300 television stations," he said. "I asked them to carry the show for free."
After lots of rejections, Allen said he eventually got 140 stations to carry it. But then he couldn't get any advertisers to buy time. His home went in and out of foreclosure 14 times as he tried to keep the business afloat.
"Nobody wanted to buy my advertising time," he said. "There were days that they turned off my phone and days I was hungry."
Finally, Allen said, he sat down with the heads of the movie studios and asked them to buy time on his show because he was indirectly promoting their movies with his celebrity interviews. They did. From there, he said, he was able to sell time to other major advertisers.
Entertainment Studios now produces and sells 15 shows on topics ranging from expensive homes to famous athletes to fashion. Most of the shows are produced cheaply and run in the wee hours of the morning or during the day.
Allen also has expanded into online shopping, offering everything from microwaves to Salvador Dali paintings for sale on the company's Web site. Allen won't say what the company is worth, only revealing that it's profitable and the largest independent distributor and producer of syndicated shows.
Most independent syndicators have been going out of business in the past few years, while Allen's company has been expanding.
Albiniak attributes Allen's success to knowing his market and having a unique business strategy. Allen sells advertising on all his shows in a block, rather than selling for each show individually. That makes the individually low-rated shows combine together to be a greater value.
"His programming, it doesn't get a lot of respect. It's pretty low-rated and made on the cheap," Broadcasting and Cable's Albiniak said. "That said, he's managed to build a syndication company in a time that the industry is dying. There aren't a lot of independent companies."