Byron Allen Biography
Byron Allen is a businessman, television producer, and comedian from the United States. He is the founder of Entertainment Studios, a U.S. media company with interests in television production, broadcasting, film production, and digital media.
Byron Allen Age
Allen was born Byron Allen Folks on 22 April 1961, Detroit, Michigan, United States of America. He is 62 years old as of April 2023.
Byron Allen Education
Allen attended high school at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles and college at the University of Southern California
Byron Allen Family
He was born and raised by Carolyn Folks in Detroit, Michigan, United States of America.
Byron Allen Wife
Allen has been married to his wife, TV producer Jennifer Lucas, since 2007. The couple have three children.
Byron Allen House
Allen lives in Aspen, Maui, Los Angeles, and New York City. In 2022, he paid $22 million for a two-home compound in Beverly Hills, California, from Jeffrey Skoll, and $100 million for a mansion in Malibu, California, previously owned by Tamara Gustavson.
Byron Allen Career
He began his career in stand-up comedy after moving to Los Angeles from Detroit. After appearing on The Tonight Show, Allen began to branch out into television work, including hosting NBC’s Real People. Allen founded what would later be known as Entertainment Studios in 1993. His fascination with show business began when he accompanied his mother, Carolyn Folks, to NBC Studios in Burbank (where she worked as a publicist). Allen wrote his first stand-up routine when he was 14 years old and began performing on amateur nights at comedy clubs throughout the Los Angeles area.
After seeing Allen’s stand-up act, comedian Jimmie Walker invited the 14-year-old to join his comedy writing team, which also included promising young comedians Jay Leno and David Letterman. Allen made his television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1979, at the age of 18, becoming the youngest comedian to ever perform on the show; he used the appearance to learn more about the television industry. Following his appearance on The Tonight Show, NBC cast Allen as a reporter for its series Real People, marking his first appearance on a network prime time show. Allen co-wrote and co-starred in the 1988 CBS television film Case Closed, from 1989 to 1992, he hosted the syndicated late-night talk show The Byron Allen Show.
Allen founded CF Entertainment, a production company dedicated to producing low-cost non-fiction television programming; its first program was the syndicated talk show Entertainers with Byron Allen, which featured interviews between Allen and celebrities. The interviews were shot at hotel press junkets for upcoming films, allowing him to produce the show at a low cost by leveraging studio equipment set up for media use. Allen distributed the program through a bartered model in which it was offered to stations for free in exchange for revenue sharing on advertising sales. The business model was not initially successful, resulting in multiple foreclosures on Allen’s home and, at one point, a loss of telephone service, requiring him to conduct business over the phone.
In 2003, the company was renamed Entertainment Studios. With the sitcoms The First Family and Mr. Box Office in 2012, Allen made his first forays into scripted programming. Later in the decade, Entertainment Studios began to pursue acquisitions such as film distributor Freestyle Releasing, TheGrio, The Weather Channel, an equity stake in Sinclair Broadcast Group’s acquisition of Fox Sports Networks, and broadcast television stations. By October 2022, the company was worth more than $4.5 billion. Allen made an offer to purchase the Denver Broncos of the National Football League in February 2022. A group led by S. Robson Walton eventually outbid Allen. 2Allen serves on the Board of Governors of the Motion Picture and Television Fund.
Byron Allen Awards
- Allen was named to the Bloomberg 50 list in 2018 as one of “the people in business, entertainment, finance, politics, technology, and science whose 2018 accomplishments were especially noteworthy.”
- The Salvation Army and the Los Angeles Metropolitan Advisory Board honored him at the Salvation Army’s 11th annual Christmas Kettle luncheon.
- Allen received the 16th Annual Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Awards from the National Association of Television Program Executives in January 2019. Allen was honored with the Whitney Young Award for 2019 at the 46th annual Los Angeles Urban League Awards dinner.
- Allen received the African American Student Union of Harvard Business School’s inaugural “Legendary Honor” in February 2023.
Byron Allen Net Worth
Allen has an estimated net worth of 800 million dollars.