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Viewers accustomed to watching The Late Show With Stephen Colbert at its typical 11.35pm time slot will be greeted with a different show starting on Friday: Comics Unleashed, hosted by Byron Allen.
While it’s standard for networks to pay a host like Allen, 65, his deal with CBS is a little different. He will be paying the network for Colbert’s old time slot through a 16-month-long lease agreement while selling advertising for the show himself.
Comics Unleashed has been running for 20 years, and in September the apolitical comedy panel show started airing in the slot right after Colbert’s. CBS executives said the deal to move up Allen’s show will provide “immediate profitability” for the network, which claimed that it canceled The Late Show for financial reasons – though many believe politics came into play. (Allen’s comedy gameshow Funny You Should Ask will continue to air after Comics Unleashed.)
For Allen, it’s just one of many deals he’s made as media executive. He was also recently in the news for acquiring a majority stake in the one-time digital media wunderkind BuzzFeed for what could ultimately be $120m ($20m now and then $100m in five years).
Ahead of the launch of the show, Allen spoke with the Guardian about taking over Colbert’s time slot and adding BuzzFeed to his stable of media properties, which also includes the Weather Channel and a group of local television networks.
This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
You’ve been on an extensive press tour since the announcement last week about your acquisition of BuzzFeed. What has been your primary message?
It’s great to tell the story, share the vision. People – they want to understand what’s going on. I tell them what I told my wife when I met her 25 years ago: “I’m building the world’s biggest media company.” I’m very passionate about what I do. I love what I do. I started my company from my dining room table in 1993, 33 years ago, and we built this company with a phone and a dining room table to what it is today, and I’m having a great time.
Do you think you will be able to keep many of The Late Show’s viewers when the time slot switches over to your show, Comics Unleashed?
It’s never been – I’m not trying to replace Colbert. I don’t think anybody can replace Colbert. I think he’s phenomenal. I think he’s fantastic.
This is a show we’ve been doing for 20 years. And there’s nothing like it on it TV right now where you have five comedians sitting around with one purpose: making people laugh. When we first started doing the show, and I’ve had on over 1,000 comedians, I said, “No political humor, nothing racist, nothing sexist, nothing antisemitic, nothing homophobic, just be funny.”
Do you find it increasingly hard to do a show that’s funny without getting into politics when everything is sort of becoming politics?
Let’s just deal with the numbers. Some of these talkshows that are doing political humor, their repeats are -52% [viewership]. If I asked you, would you have interest to look at news that was recorded a month ago or two months ago? That news is long gone. So why do you want to hear about the political news from eight weeks earlier?
The repeats on Comics Unleashed With Byron Allen – the repeats are down 14%, not 52%. That tells you right there, people are totally good with not doing political humor. They just want to watch. For me, I don’t care who you vote for and I’m not trying to push an agenda. You’re going to vote for who you want to vote for. Just show up if you want to laugh.
Considering the fees you have to pay the network, is the show profitable?
The show is profitable, sir. I’m already producing the show for first-run syndication and my cable network Comedy.tv. I’m already producing the shows. All I did was pick up another distribution platform. [CBS] spent about $110m, $120m on Colbert and about $30m or $40m on the show called After Midnight. So they were spending about $160m. So, they don’t have to spend that money. Big, giant win. Gargantuan win. And now, I’m paying them millions of dollars for the time period. So it’s a great deal for CBS and it’s a great deal for me. And the shows are doing well.
CBS is the number one broadcast network in America. They’re very smart, disciplined, and they’re not going to put on something that’s not competitive.
Do you think late-night TV in general is too expensive?
Yes. Yes. The more money you spend, the closer you are to cancellation, and these other late-night shows – they’re about half a rating point from being canceled. This is business show, not show business. You have got to make the numbers work. The numbers aren’t working.
Do you have a good relationship with Paramount executive George Cheeks and chief executive David Ellison?
I think they’re great. I think they do a phenomenal job. They are wonderful partners. They’re exceptional partners, super smart, and they’re thinking differently. Do you think I could get a deal done with the same old stodgy management elsewhere?
How does the BuzzFeed acquisition, which also includes food brand Tasty and digital news site HuffPost, tie into your late-night arrangement?
They can promote CBS late night and CBS late night can promote BuzzFeed, HuffPost and Tasty. So we can cross-promote one another and bring audiences to each other that we don’t have. We also can take the video and go viral. [BuzzFeed] was the original viral platform. They create viral videos, and we can grow our brands with podcasting and our relationships with comedians to grow that.
You’re going to see – BuzzFeed is really something special. BuzzFeed will continue to be what it is, doing what it’s doing. And in addition to that, provide free streaming. You will be able soon to go to BuzzFeed and have access, for free, to over 30,000 movies and TV shows and documentaries and on and on and on.
How many people do you imagine will work at BuzzFeed and HuffPost? Is that going to go up? Down?
I don’t know. I don’t know that number. I don’t know. I’m talking vision now. I’m giving you the vision. I’m giving you what we’re working toward.
Do you need a lot of people to execute this vision?
You don’t need more. That’s for sure. I can answer the question that way. You don’t need more, because of AI. Now, [BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti], who I love – I think he’s brilliant – Jonah is staying on board to be president of AI and run innovation for us. That’s huge. With AI, you can do so much more because you have AI available to you.
Do you think that HuffPost is doing valuable journalism?
Yes. HuffPost is phenomenal, and HuffPost is going to get even – I mean, I love HuffPost. They’re great. Very valuable journalism, the best of the best, and they’re going to even have more available to be better. Let me tell you something: I told HuffPost, “Go after the Washington Post. Chase them down like a lion chases down a gazelle. Go after them. Be bold, fierce, strong.” I want to deploy more resources there to go to the highest level of journalism.
