Industry Standard 73: Byron Allen

BYRON ALLEN is a multiple Emmy winning 35-year entertainment veteran, who began his career as a stand-up. At 14 years old, he got his first break when stand-up Jimmie Walker saw his stand-up act and was so impressed that he invited him to join his comedy writing team alongside promising young comedians Jay Leno and David Letterman. By the age of 18, Allen made his television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson--after originally turning it down a year earlier so he could finish high school and attend USC—and was the youngest comedian ever to have performed on the show. His first job hosting a TV show was that same year on Real People, which he co-hosted for 5 years on NBC, after the producers saw him on Carson.  Presently, he is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Entertainment Studios, which he started from his dining room table in 1993, with no capital and no investors, while working to launch his first television show, Entertainers with Byron Allen.  20 years later, he now oversees production of original programming, advertising sales, and distribution for his company, which at any given time airs between 27 to 32 TV series on the air, making it the largest independent producer/distributor of first-run syndicated programming for broadcast television globally. In 2009, Allen became the first television entrepreneur to own and launch a portfolio of six 24-hour HD television networks simultaneously, including Pets.TV, Comedy.TV, Recipe.TV, Cars.TV, ES.TV, and MyDestination.TV.Among the company’s top programs are Emmy-winning Cars.TV, Emmy nominated America's Court with Judge Ross and We the People With Gloria Allred, Comics Unleashed, Comedy.TV, and The Young Icons. Recently his company made its first foray into scripted programming, producing two weekly primetime sitcoms--The First Family (starring John Witherspoon and Gladys Knight) and Mr. Box Office (starring Bill Bellamy, Jon Lovitz, and Vivica Fox). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.