After unleashing comics, Byron Allen is taking over BuzzFeed

In addition to replacing Stephen Colbert on CBS, Byron Allen is buying a controlling stake in Buzzfeed.

By Matt Schimkowitz  |  May 11, 2026 | 7:25pm
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After unleashing comics, Byron Allen is taking over BuzzFeed

Get your 2026 bingo cards ready because here’s another opportunity to declare what isn’t on them. The New York Times reports that Byron Allen, the comedian and entrepreneur behind Comics Unleashed, is buying a controlling interest in BuzzFeed, once the future of media with an award-winning news desk, and now a failed experiment in the possibilities of AI clickbait. Allen Family Digital, of which Allen is the founder, chairman, and CEO, is paying $120 million for a 52 percent controlling share in the company, with Allen himself taking over as CEO, demoting co-founder Jonah Peretti to the esteemed office of president of artificial intelligence, where his LLMs fail to generate anything as entertaining as the “How Terrible Of A Sister Are You Actually?” quiz. Try as it might, Silicon Valley simply cannot automate the bored, over-caffeinated, and underemployed 20-something blogger. Nothing baits a click quite like “22 Celebrities That Look Nothing Alike.” 

For those unfamiliar with Allen, he is a comedian and businessman whose companies own, among other TV assets, The Weather Channel. In 2006, he launched Comics Unleashed, a late-night comedy chat show that Norm Macdonald once described as “oh, you couldn’t be more leashed.” The series ran for 10 years as a pretty reliable buyer of late-night ad time, but after CBS canceled The Late Late Show in 2023, the network began airing old episodes of the show, which had 233 episodes in syndication. CBS resurrected Unleashed for real in 2025 as a replacement for After Midnight because it costs CBS nothing to produce. Allen buys the airtime from CBS and sells ads independently. “It’s not cheaper,” Allen told The L.A. Times last year. “It’s zero.” Allen has been creeping up the timeslot ever since, and last summer, Comics Unleashed was announced as the replacement for Colbert’s Late Show, a decision CBS made because of its “immediate profitability.”

 
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