 Byron Allen |
Comedian-turned media mogul, Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios Inc. has bought The Weather Channel for an estimated $300M from a consortium of Bain Capital, Blackstone Group, and Comcast NBCUniversal.
The deal does not include the Weather Group’s weather.com and other digital assets, which IBM bought in 2015.
ESI, which Allen launched 25 years ago, produces, distributes and syndicates more than 40 TV programs, owns eight cable TV networks including Pets.TV, Recipe TV. Justice Central TV and MyDestination TV and runs Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures (“47 Meters Down” shark thriller, “Hostiles” western).
Allen called TWC “one of the most trusted and important cable networks” and the beginning of ESI’s process of “investing billions of dollars over the next five years to acquire some of the best media assets around the world.”
Trump Media & Technology Group today reported a $58.2M net loss on $4.1M in 2023 revenues, a disclosure that drove its stock price down 22.6 percent to $47.96.
Barry Pollack, an attorney at Wall Street’s Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler, has registered Julian Assange as a client with the Justice Dept. “out of an abundance of caution.”
Paramount Global to slash 800 jobs in what chief executive Bob Bakish calls part of an effort to “return the company to earnings growth"... Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman is exiting at the end of the month due to disagreements with chief executive Gus Wenner over the direction the magazine is taking... The New York Times broke the $1 billion barrier in annual revenue from digital subscriptions in 2023... Press Forward is investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms.
The majority of news articles are read within the first three days of publication, according to a recent report.
The Los Angeles Times gives pink slips to 115 people or 20 percent of its newsroom staff... TIME is also laying off about 30 employees, which is approximately 15 percent of its editorial staff... The Baltimore Banner, which was launched by Stewart Bainum in 2022 after he failed to buy the Baltimore Sun, added 500 subscribers per day in the three days following Sinclair Broadcast Group's deal to purchase the Sun.
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