*Remember all the hubbub about Tyler Perry, Diddy, and Byron Allen wanting to buy BET because Paramount Global was looking to sell it? Well, you can scratch that cause the company reportedly changed its mind. Essentially Paramount Global reversed its plan to sell its majority stake in BET Media Group, which includes BET Networks, BET+, and VH1. This, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The report says bidders (the ones we mentioned above as well as Kenya Barris, 50 Cent, and Shaquille O’Neal) were contacted yesterday (08-16-23) and notified that the sale was canceled because selling BET “wouldn’t result in any meaningful deleveraging of its balance sheet.”
“We made this decision because the benefits of maintaining a majority stake in BET Media Group creates more value for Paramount than any of the proposals we received,” a source from Paramount reportedly told New York Post, according to Vibe
As we noted earlier in our Social Heat column, journalist Roland Martin jumped on his social media platforms with this translation: “We couldn’t find a fool willing to overspend buying a depreciating asset.”
Apparently, that’s exactly what happened. Paramount placed the asking price as high as $3 billion, but Perry “refused to raise his $2 billion bid,” per the NY Post’s report.
Here’s more via Vibe:
Back in March, it was announced that Perry and Allen had expressed interest in buying BET when reports of the sale began to surface. The Madea franchise mogul is a minority stakeholder in the company, helped launch BET’s streaming platform in 2019, and has a large portion of his shows like House of Payne, Sistas, Zatima, and a select number of Madea-led plays available across BET and BET+.
Diddy put his bid in for BET — days after Perry and Allen — as part of his plan to “build a Black-owned global media powerhouse” and expand his company, Combs Global. Two months later, 50, Shaq, and Barris joined forces to bid on BET as a collective with the help of CVC investment group.
However, Fif considered BET to be “Tyler Perry’s network.” He explained to Vulture, “He’s done enough work there to dominate that. And not even only dominate — I don’t think they’ve explored what it would be like not having a Tyler. And he’s created enough content that if they didn’t sell the company to him, he could go across the street and say, ‘I’m going to start my own.’”
We must also make note that rumors and news postings about Tyler Perry buying BET were and are NOT true. That should be beyond obvious at this point. Again, via EUR’s Social Heat, here (below) is what Roland Martin said about that.
“Roland Martin chastised media outlets for running the story that Tyler Perry was buying the BET Network. Paramount announced it is no longer seeking to sell the asset. ‘This is why I told y’all to STOP repeating crap from bogus websites who don’t know a damn thing. A LOT of folks repeated that crap saying @tylerperry had bought @bet. It was all over social media. Well, Viacom has pulled the sale. Per the @wsj, “The company notified bidders Wednesday evening that it decided to end the sale process because it concluded that a sale wouldn’t result in any meaningful deleveraging of its balance sheet, the people said.’”
And with that said, don’t be surprised if BET is put up for sale again once the market improves.
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