BuzzFeed sold to Byron Allen, who will take over as CEO in $120m deal
BuzzFeed, the digital media pioneer that was once valued as high as $1.7bn amid a private equity-funded wave of interest in websites that generated massive amounts of online traffic in the 2010s, has finally changed hands for $120m.On Monday, the company announced that a controlling stake in the company has been sold to media entrepreneur Byron Allen.Allen, who often makes large, sometimes unsolicited bids for media companies, is also an on-screen personality in addition to controlling his Allen Media Group conglomerate, which owns networks including The Weather Channel.Allen’s show, Comics Unleashed, will replace the Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS’s schedule starting later this month.
As part of the transaction, Allen will take over for the BuzzFeed founder, Jonah Peretti, as chief executive, though Peretti will stay on as president of BuzzFeed AI.BuzzFeed also owns the progressive news outlet HuffPost.“Byron’s vision, operational experience and long-term commitment to premium content makes him exceptionally well-positioned to lead BuzzFeed and HuffPost into our next phase of growth,” Peretti said in a statement.“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.”Peretti said the company will undergo “significant” cost cuts ahead of Allen’s arrival, which often mean employee layoffs.
In the announcement, Allen said his focus will be “expanding into free-streaming video, audio and user-generated content”,Allen, who owns 13 local television networks and 10 HD television networks, suggested that BuzzFeed will use AI to try to compete with YouTube “to become another premiere free video streaming service”,BuzzFeed’s value soared in the 2010s amid a private equity-funded wave of interest in websites that generated massive amounts of online traffic,It once included a well-staffed digital newsroom, but pivoted away from the journalism business in 2023,Since then, the company has become better known for content marketing, though its videos still often go viral.
In an effort to generate cash, BuzzFeed went public in late 2021, a decision that turned out to be disastrous, as the company’s stock price has continued to crater.In the first quarter of 2026, the company suffered a net loss of $15m.As of Monday evening, the company’s stock price sits at $0.71 per share.But Allen will be buying 40m shares at $3 per share.
“That says something about what he sees in what we’ve built,” Peretti said in an internal memo to BuzzFeed employees about the sale that was obtained by the Guardian.In the memo, Peretti said he would speak directly with employees on Tuesday about the coming cost reductions.BuzzFeed’s two most prominent digital media competitors, Vice Media and Vox Media, have also seen financial challenges since the days when Facebook algorithms helped them generate massive – but difficult to monetize – online audiences.Vox Media is reportedly considering a potential sale of parts of the company, with James Murdoch, son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, said to be the leading potential buyer.
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