You might feel like you’ve read this one before – and you have, kind of. Less than a month after Byron Allen got AT&T and DirecTV carriage deals after charging them with racial discrimination in a $10 billion lawsuit, he’s got some new targets. Today, both the Federal Communications Commission and Charter Communications were sued for $10 billion in federal court by Allen’s Entertainment Studios and the National Association of African-American Owned Media for “racial discrimination in contracting for television channel carriage.”
“President Obama and the Democratic Party have completely excluded the African-American community when it comes to economic inclusion,” Allen said in a statement Wednesday. “Everyone talks about diversity, but diversity in Hollywood and the media starts with ownership. African-Americans don’t need handouts and donations; we can hire ourselves if white corporate America does business with us in a fair and equitable way.”
And that includes the FCC, according to today’s lawsuit.
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“A driving purpose of the Federal Communications Act and the First Amendment is to ensure the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse sources,” the jury seeking complaint (read it here) says of the Obama administration body. “Yet the FCC has done nothing to protect the voices of African-American-owned media companies in the face of increased media consolidation,” it adds, noting the proposed $55 billion merger of Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable. “Instead, the FCC works hand-in-hand with these merging television distribution companies to enable and facilitate their Civil Rights violations. The FCC’s apparent standard operating procedure is to obtain and accept sham diversity commitments from merger applicants, in excess of its statutory duties.”
And if the FCC got hit hard by Allen and NAAAOM, Charter and its execs really took a blow.
“At the direction of its President and Chief Executive Officer, Tom Rutledge, Defendant Charter Communications has intentionally excluded African-American-owned media companies, including Plaintiff Entertainment Studios, from contracting for carriage on its television distribution platform,” the complaint adds. “Rutledge did this himself and by and through his subordinates, including Allan Singer, Senior Vice President of Programming at Charter,” the 27-page filing notes, calling Rutledge, “a blatant racist.”
Today’s filing is the second such suit that Allen and NAAAOM have in the courts against the telecommunications giants right now. A $20 billion lawsuit against Comcast and Time Warner Cable was originally filed February 23, then dismissed by U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter Jr. on August 7, and then revived by him on August 19. On September 21, Allen and NAAAOM filed an amended complaint, which Comcast asked to be dismissed on October 21. While the matter is still before the courts, TWC was dismissed as a defendant from the case last fall with its merger with Comcast stopped short. Called a “token” and mentioned repeatedly in today’s suit, Al Sharpton and his National Action Network exited from the Comcast case in September. The NAACP and the Urban League also were dropped from the ongoing Comcast suit late last year.
As they did in the AT&T and DirecTV suit and are in the Comcast case, Louis “Skip” Miller’s Miller Barondess LLP is representing Allen’s ESN and NAAAOM in this matter.
Bryon said:
“African Americans don’t need handouts and donations; we can hire ourselves if white corporate America does business with us in a fair and equitable way.””
What’s fair and equitable and non-discriminatory in declaring you will hire African Americans.
Sigh, how I hate reverse discrimination more than I dispise discrimination.
Being disabled myself, I’m totally opposed to diversity quotas. Which are I itself discriminatory.
Can’t we all just be people? Can’t we all just accept we can’t be all to everyone and just do the best we can, all as just people?
How is the weather today in Fantasyland?
That’s the problem.
Any attempt to make everyone equal and just Pepe. All with our own issues, but all one people, is just marked up as unrealistic and a fantasy,
It’s only a fantasy because people aren’t doing it. It can start with you.
I’m fed up of America. How is the day to day life in Dreamworld?
Living life with true equality is excellent.
Try it some time.
Don’t be burdened by quotas and trying to make up for past wrongs. Just be fair and ethical and everything else works out.
I don’t think Charter is being ethical
Has charter only ever refused service to non-white operations? Have they ever refused service to a white enterprise?
If your answers are not respectively yes and no, then you cannot accuse charter of being unethical in this regard.
I wish we could all be just people. However, there are some irrevocable truths in history that have led us to where we are now. It all began with redlining in the 1960s that drove African Americans into low income areas — urban cities and ghettos. Then when the airwaves were being sold, the only people they were sold to were white males. So, like it or not, history has not been fair to the African American community — leading to the tensions we see now. I think it is always important to challenge the status quo and that is exactly what Mr. Allen is doing.
As I said, I am disabled. My type has not been treated well throughout history.
Who cares. It’s today, not the past. Not yesterday.
Are things perfect. No. But they certainly won’t get perfect by de,adding payment for past wrongs. I don’t want payment. I want the world to start this minute and be right. And if we don’t get it done this minute, then try he next minute.
Stop complaining about history and its wrings and demanding justice, live for today and the future and do what’s right.
Because otherwise, we have what we have now. Fifty years later than your post and a world of hurt. How’s that helped? It hasn’t.
Wanting “justice” for past inequalities has never, and I mean, never since the dawn of time been successful. It simply continues the problem.
Sorry no such thing as reverse discrimination.
I agree, the term needs to die. People should use the term racism equally to all races. Using terms like “reverse” buys into the racist mythology that some groups are more worthy of empathy than others.
Charter’s prices are already high enough without this overnight barter garbage filling entire channel slots. Please stop picking up this guy’s channels; unless he intends to budget actual money into actual programming, nobody is watching.
Maybe it’s not about the channels themselves.. What if it’s more about the business end?
If only programming mattered, wouldn’t you say that there would be no infomercials? Seems to me like channels HAVE to have something running per every time slot. Lots of channels don’t have enough programming to fill the late night spaces especially. So why not do business with this Entertainment Studios guy instead of making deals with other companies (particularly if they’re infomercials)? Probably wouldn’t make much of a cost difference per subscriber.
Has anyone actually seen Allen’s show “comics” unleashed at 2am. It’s crisp and Allen’s entire career is based on tokenism. He’s completely devoid of talent and this suit damages legitimate complaints of racial discrimination.
I totally agree. I happened to run across his show by accident the other day and was surprised he was still on the air after all these years. He’s so wooden and scripted.
Devoid of talent.. Are we talking about the same guy?
Byron Allen’s suit IS a legitimate complaint of racial discrimination. As a lawyer, you basically work on commission. Who in the world would waste their time and resources on a case they didn’t think they could win? I think there’s more here than meets the eye
This sounds weak, will all the depth of a Byron Allen interview.
I saw him on TMZ and thought he was alright.
Now we know where he got the money to buy freestyle releasing and where he got the money to bid on the birth of a nation.
He’s an epic business man, I’ll give him that
Say what you will about Byron, but he’s made an effing fortune DESPITE Hollywood not letting him play in their sandbox. Imagine what he would be worth (current estimate about $300MM) if he had been allowed to participate from the get-go like some of the other (at one time) small independent players i.e. Grazer, Roth, Burnett, etc. Agreed that his programming isn’t ready for prime time but like most minority players you have to get your foot in the door and ‘fit in where you can get in”. It should be noted that his company just engaged in a fierce bidding battle with Fox, Netflix and others at Sundance and he was prepared to drop $20MM for the rights to TBOAN (and you needed $10MM just to even be in the room to negotiate). So before you start dissing what he has accomplished check your bank account and reconsider. And yes … he is still corny as fuck!
THIS!!!!
Who is this Byron Allen guy and why is he upset that his network isn’t being bought? They don’t have to buy it. But they’re racist if they don’t? Is this a joke?
No. He’s using Sharpton’s playbook.
He mentions Sharpton in the suit.. I don’t think he’s his biggest fan
He hates Sharpton. Byron speaks for his own business and that’s it. He’s not a pretender
It has nothing to do with race, his channels offer subpar quality so no carrier wants them. I’m annoyed I have his networks in my channel listing yet I can’t get a quality channel like Epix.
Epix would cost you more on your monthly bill since it is a premium channel. You can probably upgrade to it now depending on your carrier. However, regular broadcast channels like Byron’s cost nothing
I used to work for him. More specifically, for Entertainment Studios. The headquarters for such fabulous VIOS Cable channels such as Cars.TV, Pets.TV, and I completely agree that his channels offer subpar quality. The whole time I was there, I just wanted to run down the hallways and scream, “God, please! Let this mediocrity end.” But alas, I needed a job and I had two basset hounds to feed. You have to understand, his only talent is making something old new again. He’ll stop at nothing to target what ever loophole he can to make money. Sad thing is, he’s got a lot of money thanks to syndication. You want to know why Comics Unleashed is still on the air after almost 10 years with only 2 or 3 seasons of ORIGINAL programing? It’s because he’ll license and renew the run of REPEATS of these shows. He’s one lucky S.O.B. in my opinion. Not the worst boss. He did pay me. (Can you note my sarcasm?) His studio is literally the Walmart of Television. Low quality programming with an even lower quality budget. I’ve better quality in a macaroni art project. But those are my 2 cents.
Put me on the jury and Byron Allen will get life without parole for being untalented.
What!! I see him on TV all the time. That guy is frickin’ hilarious
Byron Allen produces unwatchable garbage. Playing the race card to cram it down out throats & line his pockets is unacceptable.
My daughter loves Pets.TV, I record it for her all the time. She’d be very sad if we couldn’t get it anymore. I hope Byron makes more episodes!
One more reason to cut the cable cord.
All you need is GoT and TWD amiright
His entire TV production model is the cause of his problems. He produces the lowest-quality TV shows, gives them away, and collects 50% of the advertising revenue. His sub-par shows are late, late, late night network filler. But he’s worth $300 million because of this model.
Yeah, I get that.. but the guy’s been in business for a long time. The model’s gotta work, right? Besides, I’d rather watch network filler than another two-hour Wen advertisement (no offense, Alyssa Milano).
Dude you’re totally missing the point
These lawsuits are funnier than any of his shows.
yeah, everyone at directv is laughing, too, david. dumbass.
Minority owners are burdened by the legacy of racism. When the U.S. government first started giving away airwaves in the 1930s, they were distributed exclusively to white, male owners.
in 1930 that may have been true. Welcome to 2016. in All of history never has there been a place and time where all races are as close to equal as they are now. Blacks squander every advantage they have. Byron Allen has a 100% black owned business. Imagine a white guy saying I have 100% white owned business. He would have been sued, rioted against, protested, and would have been called a racists. But I guess racism only applies when its against a black. I moved several times in my life because I noticed blacks moving into or close to my area. Without fail a few years after each move I look back into the crime rate and property value of where I used to live and am happy I do not have to deal with much high crime rates and plummeting market value. Mr. Allen is no different then your common street thug. He is simplest using a different weapon. Hopefully he doesn’t destroy good entertainment.
What you wrote about “moving several times in my life because I noticed blacks moving into or close to my area” is blatantly racist…you should be ashamed of yourself….people like you set back America’s evolution by years and years….lemme guess….your a white, entitled, (anonymous b/c you’re too afraid to sign your name by such statements), male. Everyone agrees that Byron is a successful entertainment business man…this must frost your ass, you smug bigot!
“I moved several times in my life because I noticed blacks moving into or close to my area”
I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul
HA! Way to be totally racist man. That color blind stuff has never been a decent way of approaching the topic of race. There is a serious issue going on in Hollywood for African Americans and Hispanics. Maybe we if we started recognizing that, we’d all actually BE equal instead of “as close to equal as we are now.”
You could not be more sheltered – probably from all of those good moves you made. Welcome to 2016 – but maybe you forgot most of the news events of 2015. Black kids getting shot like target practice by the police, black home ownership and employment at terrible lows, blacks in business can’t get business loans, and it goes on and on. Things are not so great if you’re African American (which I’m not). I take for granted driving down the street and not thinking for a second about the cop car in the next lane – my (professional, hard working) black friends do get nervous. I don’t see how us caucasians can ever understand what that feels like.
Byron Allen is fighting in a dog-eat-dog world and he’s out there swinging. You can call him a thug if you like, but if you do, you just sound like a racist and no one (except other racists maybe) will listen.
And what weapon is he using that makes him a thug? The law/legal process (that Trump, in the first debate, said was what all smart business people including him do)? The press? Distribute networks and TV shows? If those things make him a thug, you need to spend some time in some of your old neighborhoods to witness some actual thugs – because the world could actually use “thugs” like Byron!
I applaud him and others like him who call out big businesses or the government on their shit. Takes cajones.
He is a talentless, wooden, serial plaintiff, that has no business being on television.
I don’t know.. I actually kind of like Cars.TV. So it’s not all bad
Go, Byron!
Somebody has got to look out for the African American community. I applaud Mr. Allen for his efforts
Whose his lawyer going to be, Jada Pinkett-Smith?
I am a black business owner and I support Byron Allen
yo, as a black person, this dude and Jessie Jackson annoy the hell out of me. they bring up far fetched racial issues where their are none just to advance their own goals and private agendas(i researched this, you should too). this man is totally racist in a missed up kinda way, considering his wife is white. does he demoralize her on a regular basis? he obviously has self esteem issues, is a bigot and con artist. STOP MAKING BLACK PEOPLE LOOK BAD,GEEZZ. You too Spike lee… racial equality has never been better, and has no more room for improvement. the few can never over-rule the many, ass holes.