Shaquille O’Neal, 50 Cent Part of Latest Group with Reported Interest in Buying BET
Things have been fairly quiet on the sale front for BET lately. It was first reported that Paramount Global was accepting bids for the cable channel and its streaming service in early March, and in the weeks following, several potential sale partners emerged, including billionaire Byron Allen, current BET+ minority owner Tyler Perry, and hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Since those announcements, talk of a BET sale has cooled. But it’s heating up again, as the Wall Street Journal is reporting several big names are joining with Group Black’s bid for BET Media Group, which also includes the VH1 cable network. Rap mogul and TV-creator 50 Cent, NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal, and “black-ish” creator Kenya Barris — who is already a minority stakeholder in BET Studios — are among the names included in Group Black’s proposal for buying BET. Bids will be due later this month, according to the Journal, so the group of candidates now known publicly isn’t likely to grow much bigger — though of course, there could be potential bidders that haven’t made themselves known publicly yet.
Paramount has decided that, going forward, Paramount+ and the free streaming platform Pluto TV will be where it focuses its streaming efforts. The company added 4.1 million global Paramount+ customers last quarter, rising to 60 million overall. Despite these gains in users, Paramount posted a loss of more than $500 million from its streaming arm during the first quarter of 2023, and the sooner the BET sale is complete, the faster Paramount can pivot to other tactics for placing Paramount+ front and center.
Those tactics include the potential sale of Noggin, Paramount’s streaming platform dedicated to children’s content. A few weeks after the news that Paramount was exploring a BET sale broke, it was reported the company was also open to selling Noggin. As yet, there have been fewer public reports regarding interested parties in Noggin, though once again there are potentially several bidders who have kept their intrigue in the service a secret.
Paramount also received a bid for its streaming service/cable channel package SHOWTIME early in the year, though that offer was unsolicited. The company declined that bid, preferring to carry out its plan to integrate SHOWTIME with Paramount+ sometime this summer. BET+ would not be as simple to integrate with Paramount+ because of Perry’s minority stake in the streamer, which is part of the reason Paramount is looking to sell it instead of performing a similar merger of streaming platforms.
Since bids for BET are due by later this month, there will likely be more news regarding its potential sale in the coming weeks. Depending on the numbers Paramount sees initially, a sale could proceed quickly, given the number of interested parties that have publicly emerged since it was announced the company was possibly looking to spin off BET Media Group.
BET+
BET+ is an online streaming service from BET Networks, launched as a joint venture with Tyler Perry Studios. As one of the largest online subscription video-on-demand services focused on the Black audience and lovers of Black culture, BET+ features more than 1,000 hours of premium content including new, exclusive programming, iconic TV series, movie favorites, as well as documentaries, and specials from BET Networks. BET+ offers original programming from Tyler Perry, including his plays, series, and box office hits.