Following severe pitfalls like market shifts and a sharp decline in the volume of subscribers on her platform, Paramount had decided to sell off most of its assets—including VH1 and BET cable networks and BET+ streaming service—in the early months of 2023.
Seeing that the platform was Black community-oriented, Paramount + believed that it would catch the eyes of Black investors, and it did.
From Diddy Combs, Byron Allen, and Tyler Perry to power trio Travis Montaque, Bonin Bough, and Richelieu Dennis, the race to purchase BET was a hot one.
However, whatever they had in mind was below what the assets were valued at, give or take, 3 billion dollars, and now the lowballing has caused the media powerhouse to take its offer off the table.
According to reports, Paramount Global was seeking to retain a minority stake in BET if a deal did come to fruition. Paramount had received bids for the majority stake ranging from around US$2bn to US$3bn, but it had decided to end the sale process as a sale “would not result in any meaningful deleveraging of its balance sheet.”
Paramount Global has been looking for ways to find cost savings and raise cash as it pours billions of dollars into its streaming service Paramount+.
As part of enterprise-wide cost-cutting measures the company has made lay-offs, cancelled shows and announced plans to integrate Showtime and Paramount+ across both linear and streaming in the US.
Paramount Global recently sold its publishing company Simon & Schuster for around US$1.62bn to private equity firm KKR after a US$2.2bn sale to Penguin Random House was blocked by a federal judge in the US.
BET was founded in 1980 by cable lobbyist Robert L Johnson. It was acquired by Paramount Global (formerly Viacom) for around US$2.3bn in 2000.
Led by CEO Scott Mills, BET Media Group claims to be the world’s largest media company dedicated to championing black culture and storytelling. Earlier this year, VH1, which previously sat under Paramount Media Networks, was moved under BET, while Canela Media and Bravo alumnus Jerry Leo was named its new executive VP of programming strategy in May.
BET Studios was set up in 2021 with the aim of giving black creators more equity ownership in the TV and film projects they create.
As the coming days unfold we will bring exciting developments if anything changes.
Fingers crossed.
