Byron Allen Buys BuzzFeed for $120M, Will Become CEO

Byron Allen is buying BuzzFeed. The media mogul and incoming CBS late-night host has struck a $120 million deal to acquire a majority stake in the once-dominant digital media company, and will take over as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer — capping one of the more dramatic falls from grace in modern media history.

BuzzFeed announced Monday it has entered into a transaction agreement with Allen Family Digital, LLC, an affiliate of Allen’s family office, under which Allen Family Digital will purchase 40 million shares at $3.00 per share, giving it approximately 52% of the company’s outstanding shares. The deal is expected to close by the end of May 2026.

The structure of the purchase is worth noting: only $20 million comes as cash at closing. The remaining $100 million is a promissory note due five years from closing, accruing interest at 5% annually. For a company that earlier this year warned investors it was running out of money and carrying $58.4 million in debt, this lifeline — however structured — was the alternative to something much worse. Without a buyer, BuzzFeed was widely expected to face bankruptcy.

Peretti Steps Aside After 20 Years

Jonah Peretti co-founded BuzzFeed in 2006 and built it into one of the defining digital media brands of its era — the site that taught the internet what a listicle was, turned quizzes into appointment content, and pioneered the art of the viral share. He’s been its CEO ever since. Now, after two decades, he’s stepping aside.

Peretti will transition to a newly created role as President of BuzzFeed AI, shifting his focus from running the company to developing AI-driven products and media formats. “After 20 years as CEO of BuzzFeed, I’m excited to switch my focus to a more hands-on role developing products and technology that are only possible because of recent advances in AI,” he said in a statement. “I’m convinced that AI will fundamentally transform the media industry and empower creative people to build in new ways.”

On a conference call Monday, Peretti was candid about the opportunity the transition represents for him personally. “I’m confident I can have a bigger impact and create more value in this new capacity,” he said, adding that stepping down as chief executive would allow him to play “a more hands-on role developing products and technology.”

He was also notably warm about his successor. “Byron Allen has built one of the world’s largest media companies and is one of the most accomplished media entrepreneurs in the industry, having spent 30-plus years transforming distribution infrastructure, identifying strategic assets, and scaling them into something much greater,” Peretti said. He even gave a nod to Allen’s expanding media footprint: “And personally, I’m thrilled Byron is taking over ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’s’ time slot, and highly confident that his relationships with talent will bring some incredible stars to the BuzzFeed platform.”

Who Is Byron Allen, Exactly?

Byron Allen, 65, is one of those figures who has been quietly building a media empire for decades while the industry’s attention was focused elsewhere. A former stand-up comedian and TV host, he founded Allen Media Group in 1993 and has spent the years since turning it into a broadcast powerhouse. He owns 13 ABC, CBS, and NBC network affiliate television stations across 11 U.S. markets, ten 24-hour HD television networks — including The Weather Channel, TheGrio Television Network, and HBCU GO — and digital streaming platforms reaching nearly 275 million subscribers.

He’s also been swinging for bigger targets for years. Allen has previously pursued Paramount Global, BET, and Tegna, without landing any of them. The market has sometimes expressed skepticism about his ambitions, but he keeps moving. Earlier this month, he sold television stations in nearly a dozen markets to Atlanta-based Gray Media Inc. for about $170 million — and now he’s turning around and putting that kind of capital to work on BuzzFeed.

The timing is genuinely busy for Allen. His Comics Unleashed show — produced by Allen Media Group — is set to take over CBS’s late-night block on May 21, filling the slot left by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which is being canceled by CBS and its owner Paramount Skydance. He’s also leasing the 12:37 a.m. hour for comedy game show Funny You Should Ask. The man is not slowing down.

It’s worth understanding that this BuzzFeed deal is being done through Allen’s family office — Allen Family Digital — not through Allen Media Group itself. That’s a meaningful distinction. AMG houses his broadcast stations, The Weather Channel, and his production arm. This is a separate personal investment vehicle, which gives Allen some structural flexibility in how he manages and grows the BuzzFeed asset.

“Jonah is a great visionary and has done a phenomenal job. BuzzFeed and HuffPost have become two iconic global digital media brands with powerful audience reach and strong cultural importance,” Allen said in a statement. “Our vision is to build on the iconic foundation of BuzzFeed and HuffPost by expanding into free-streaming video, audio and user-generated content. As of this moment, with the power of AI, BuzzFeed is officially chasing YouTube to become another premiere free video streaming service.”

How Far BuzzFeed Has Fallen

To understand the scale of this moment, you have to go back to what BuzzFeed once was. At its peak in 2016, the company raised $200 million from NBCUniversal and was valued at $1.7 billion. Investors — including Comcast, Disney, and Fox — saw digital-native publishers as the future, and BuzzFeed was the brightest star in that sky. In 2013, Disney reportedly offered to buy BuzzFeed outright for $650 million. Peretti passed.

The turn was fast and brutal. Facebook, the platform that made BuzzFeed’s viral model work, became a competitor rather than a partner. Digital advertising consolidated around the biggest platforms — Google, Meta, TikTok — leaving publishers squeezed. BuzzFeed went public in 2021 via a SPAC deal that saddled it with debt and valued it around $1.5 billion. It used that capital to acquire Complex Networks for roughly $300 million. It didn’t work out. The company eventually sold Complex and its First We Feast franchise to pay down debt, shuttered its Pulitzer Prize-winning BuzzFeed News operation in 2023, and went through multiple rounds of layoffs.

Before Monday’s announcement, BuzzFeed’s stock was trading at 73 cents per share — a market cap of roughly $28 million. Allen’s deal, at $3 per share, represents a premium of more than 300% to that closing price. BuzzFeed shares surged more than 170% in after-hours trading on the news. The company’s full-year 2025 revenues came in at $185.3 million, down 2.4% from the prior year. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, the company posted a net loss of $15.1 million on revenues of $31.6 million — a 12.4% year-over-year decline. Advertising revenue fell nearly 20% to $17.1 million, though content revenue grew more than 50% to $7.5 million. BuzzFeed’s stock had also drawn a Nasdaq delisting warning earlier this year for trading below the $1 threshold — a notice it had received once before, in 2023, prompting a reverse stock split to stay listed.

In March, the company told investors there was “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue as a going concern. Monday’s deal is the answer to that warning.

What Comes Next

Allen isn’t inheriting a clean situation, and everyone seems to know it. Peretti was direct in his announcement: ahead of Allen’s arrival, BuzzFeed is planning “significant changes, including cost reductions.” The company is also establishing BuzzFeed Studios — which covers vertical micro-dramas, animation, digital video, and premium feature films — and food-focused brand Tasty as a new independent entity, separate from the core BuzzFeed operation.

The legal work on the deal is being handled by Latham & Watkins and Freshfields, according to an SEC disclosure. BuzzFeed is withholding full-year 2026 guidance until the transaction closes and the company has a clearer picture of its strategic path forward.

Allen has signaled he sees a real opportunity in the brand equity that BuzzFeed and HuffPost still carry — two names that, whatever their current financial state, remain genuinely recognizable to a generation of internet users. His ambition, stated plainly, is to chase YouTube’s free streaming model using AI as the accelerant. Whether that’s achievable from BuzzFeed’s current position is the question the next chapter will answer.

What’s certain is that the era of Jonah Peretti’s BuzzFeed — the one that invented the quiz, broke news, and made “going viral” a cultural concept — is officially over. “BuzzFeed is officially chasing YouTube,” Allen declared. The company that once was the internet is now betting on what the internet might become.