The InFOCUS Podcast: Byron Allen

Byron Allen, the one-time comedian turned media mogul, is one of five recipients of a Leadership Award from the Broadcasters Foundation of America. Allen's acceptance of the honor will be remembered for a generation — he hammed it up on stage before delivering a poignant message to the industry VIPs in attendance. RBR+TVBR was there, and we have the full audio of Allen's speech in the latest InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.fm.

Episode Transcript

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This is the RBR TV BR in focus podcast. Here's your host radio

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and television business report editor in chief Adam R Jacobson.
Hello and welcome to the podcast presented by dot FM streaming
social podcast or broadcast get a dot FM domain name heading
over to get dot FM today. And today we have a very special NAB
show 2022 edition of the podcast. On Wednesday, April

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27. We were privileged to be in the audience at the broadcasters
foundation of America leadership awards. There were five
recipients of the awards. They include Pierre bouvard, the
chief insights officer for cumulus media and Westwood one,
Ralph Oakley, the retired president and CEO of Quincy

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media incorporated Christine travelini, president of cats
radio group, retired NAB executive vice president of
communications, Dennis Wharton, and one Byron Allen. Byron
Allen has made a name for himself over 40 years and today
is chairman CEO of Allen media group and entertainment
studios. His goal is to be the number one media group in

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America. In accepting the broadcasters foundation of
America leadership award, Allen gave a riveting speech. We're
pleased to share it with you in its entirety at this time.
First of all, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. This
means the world to me because listen, I have pretty much

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grown up admiring so many of you. You are excellent at what
you do. I'm just proud to be in your company. So thank you. I
am so humble because you know, I come from extremely humble

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beginnings. I am really fortunate to be an American to
be born in this country. This country isn't perfect. But this
country is the best country on planet Earth. And I am so so

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blessed. I cannot begin to tell you how blessed I am. You know,
Andy Temple said to me last night he goes, Do you really
understand? I'm like, I can't even if I start to think about
it, I begin to cry. So I don't want to like I just shut it
down. I just turned 61 years old. So I know I live 21. I know.

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So I tell everybody I'm a 61 year old overnight sensation.
But when I think about, you know, my mother, who got
pregnant with me when she was 16 and had me 17 days after her
17th birthday. And when you look at that little black teenage

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girl, having a black baby in April of 61. Nobody in this
county Vegas is betting on us. But God not only gave me a
beautiful mother, but a brilliant mother. And in April
of 61, when they assassinated Mark Luther King, she and I

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decided to go from Detroit, where we were to Los Angeles to
get away from the city being burned up from the riots. And we
ended up not just going for a two week vacation, we ended up
staying and we ended up staying in LA and my mother, not only
brilliant ended up getting into UCLA and ended up getting her

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master's degree in cinema TV production. And from that, it
changed our life forever. And I would go with my mom to work
because she got a job working in NBC as a tour guide. And then
later in publicity and marketing. And that's when I sat
in the means waiting for my mother to get off work. And I
watched Johnny Carson do the Tonight Show and Flip Wilson do

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his show and Red Fox do his show and Bob Hope do his
specials. And I thought what a wonderful way to build your
life, making people laugh and making television and being
amongst you. So thank you. I really appreciate it.
And once I discovered what I wanted to do with my life, I

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realized there's more I can do. And I was always impacted by the
assassination of Martin Luther King. So I got to know his
widow, Coretta Scott Kent, I consider her the true queen of
America. And I got to know her and she taught me so much. And
she said to me, you know, Byron, as black people in this country,
we've had four major challenges. Number one, end slavery.

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Number two, end Jim Crow. And number three, achieve civil
rights, which I was not born with. And then she choked up.
And she said, and number four, the real reason I killed Martin
Martin, achieve economic inclusion. She said, Byron,

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they didn't kill Martin Martin over the speech, I have a dream.
They killed him over the speech he gave in February of 68 at
Stanford University, the other America. And in that speech, he
said, there are two Americas. One America has access to
opportunity, education, and economic inclusion. Two

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Americas will not survive. We must achieve one America. And
from that moment on, she changed my perspective. And I decided
that I would dedicate my life to achieving that vision. One
America. And from that moment on, I said, I will build the

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world's biggest media company. And that company will effectuate
good for the greater change of America for America. One
America. What does that look like for me? For us? I call it
the five E's, which this amazing organization is very much a
part of it. Number one, education. You know what it

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means. Change my life forever. Number two, equal justice.
If we don't have it, you see the civil unrest. Number three,
economic inclusion is the key to ending incarceration in this
country. Number four, environmental protection. It's

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the reason I bought the Weather Channel. It's our greatest
threat, climate change. And number five, empathy. We have to
stop acting like we don't see the flu in supermarkets. We have
to stop acting like we don't see the flu in secure. We don't see
the mentally ill and we don't see the homeless. Those five

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E's. If we achieve those five E's, we can achieve one America
and then we can achieve one planet and we can achieve
heaven right here on earth. That's what I'm doing every day.
Now the President of the United States is not the most powerful
person in the world. Are the people in this room. You. Because

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you control media. You control the flow of information. You
control images. You control the news. You control what we see,
what we think. You are the real champions of America. What you
do matters. You are the pillar of this country. And I'm so

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honored to be amongst you and thank you. I appreciate you.
Thank you and congratulations to the fellow honorees. Thank you.
That was Byron Allen, the chairman and CEO of Allen Media

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Group and Entertainment Studios receiving the Broadcasters
Foundation of America Leadership Award on Wednesday, April 27th.
And with that, we want to thank you for listening to this very
special edition of the In Focus Podcast. It was sponsored by
.fm streaming social podcast or broadcast. Get a.fm domain
name by heading over to get.fm today. From Las Vegas, Nevada

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and the closing of the 2022 NAB show, I'm Adam R. Jacobson for
the In Focus Podcast. Have a great day.