The motion picture and television production industries domestically are temporarily stalled by a Writer's strike, and though much of the industry now is distributed across many right-to-work states like Georgia, the related artistic and production unions are honoring the strike, refusing to cross picket lines and placing an indefinite pause on millions in productions by major and minor studios alike.
Paramount Global, formerly Viacom and now part of the CBS Entertainment Group, began shopping around B.E.T. Media Group for sale more than a year ago. Despite owning, airing, and streaming a good bit of prestige programming, including the lucrative and always spawning sequels and prequels, Star Trek franchise, Paramount, of late has also been hemorrhaging red ink. B.E.T. Media includes Black Entertainment Television, BET Plus (streaming version of the network) as well as VH-1. One of B.E.T.'s most prolific content providers and partners and largest producer for BET Plus is film mogul, producer, actor, writer, and director, Tyler Perry.
Moving to Atlanta in 1990, Perry used his $12,000.00 in life savings (at the age of 22) to stage a musical production, which was admittedly less than a modest success. But Perry persisted, rewriting and retooling that play, as well as launching other productions across what was then referred to as "The Chitlin Theater" circuit, performed live primarily before urban and minority audiences. By 2005, Forbes reported that various Tyler Perry stage shows and productions had generated $ 100 million in ticket sales, another $ 30 million in videos of those shows, and an estimated $ 20 million in merchandising. Perry was producing an estimated 300 live shows annually, with an average weekly aggregate attendance of 35,000.
By 2005/2006, Perry was able to use those ticket sales to finance his first motion picture, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which included the introduction to mass audiences of Perry-world staple character, Mabel "Madea" Simmons, a colorful, protective and memorable aging black woman, as well as coincidentally a lifelong resident of Atlanta, played by Perry. A long list of Madea comedies would follow, and I am admittedly a fan.
Perry could have stopped there and been a very wealthy man, but instead, he branched out into television production, first with Tyler Perry's House of Payne, which ran for eight seasons on TBS, from 2006-2011.
In 2011, Forbes magazine noted Perry was the highest-paid man in the entertainment industry, yet he was still aiming higher. In 2015, Perry acquired 330 acres of the former Fort McPherson U.S. Army Military Base, straddling East Point and the southernmost tip of the City of Atlanta. What has become Tyler Perry Studios, now includes 12-sound stages, a White House replica stage, and dozens of structures remaining from Fort Mac dating back to the late 1800s.
From playwright to producer to mogul, Perry Studios was also the home production facility for the blockbuster, Black Panther, in 2018. Perry entered into long-term agreements with Viacom and later BET Plus for new programs and content production during 2017 and 2019. Lionsgate Films has been co-producing and distributing Perry's films and in 2022 it announced the construction and development of a $200-million studio and production facility in Douglas County, Georgia. Perry also made Douglas County his home, building a spectacular $100-million compound there. In 2021, Forbes magazine estimated Perry’s net worth to be in excess of $ 1 billion.
It now appears Perry has won a bidding war of sorts to acquire the entire B.E.T. Entertainment Group. Perry's work for the BET Plus streaming service was helping to generate the bulk of BET revenue growth, as well as 3 million paying subscribers. However, B.E.T. and VH-1 are currently based in New York City, where production, talent, and certainly housing costs are among the highest in the nation.
I'm betting that once the deal closes, Tyler Perry might look to add the title 'developer' to his resume, much as the Trilith Studios (formerly Pinewood Studios) in nearby Fayetteville have become a fast-growing live, work and play community. Whether within the existing Tyler Perry Studios campus, perhaps at the new Lionsgate facilities, or even closer to Perry's residential compound, Perrywood has a nice ring to it. The capital needed, given current interest rates to build out such a complex might be best found in the IPO market. To date, Tyler Perry owns everything that he has created, but if he decides to share that ownership in the form of stock in his latest expansion and combined enterprise, I will be betting on Tyler Perry. Makes a nice home for the new HQ of B.E.T. too.
