Yeah.

Due to the significant roles played by Colorado's black communities, the Aaron Harbor Show is honoring Black History Month with a selectio of a variety of past programs.

As is the case with all of his shows.

These programs were recorded with each guest and Aaron together in studio or side by side on location.

These shows were recorded over a span of two decades.

You also can view them at Bitly, slash, Aaron, hyphen, PBS, and Harbor TV.com.

The eclectic sample of past guest selected for this special series include the following.

Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, world musician Taj Mahal, media magnate Byron Allen, civil rights icon Joh Lewis, and general Colin Powell.

We hope you enjoy the series and the celebration of these inspirational icons who happen to be black.

Byron Allen, comedian, television and film producer, billionaire media mogul, racial justice advocate, philanthropist and Broadcast Hall of Fame recipient.

Started his remarkable career as a comedian at age 14.

Allen founded Global Media Entities Entertainment Studios and Allen Media Broadcasting, establishing himself as the nation's leader in black owned broadcasting, film and television.

His media empire includes The Weather Channel, as well as television stations and multiple other platforms across the nation and globe.

Starting as a teenager, Allen appeared on The Tonight Show at age 1 and went on to host television's first reality based program, Real People.

His current holdings include 36 ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox network affiliate broadcas television stations in 22 U.S. markets, along with 1220 four hour HD television networks including The Weather Channel, all serving over 220 million subscribers.

His remarkable story rising from work as a comedian to owning a major media empire, can only be described as amazing.

Welcome to the Aaron Harber Show.

We are in Miami at the annual conference of the National Association of Television and Program Executives, or NFP.

Hearing firsthand from key insiders how the television industry has changed over the past two decades.

Diversity, technological advancements, and streaming's disruption of classic programing models are all on the table.

So let's take a look with the founde of Entertainment Studios, Byron Allen, with Byron Allen, wh I mean, all of the things that you are known for courses as a great comedian.

Now you're this media mogul.

How did that happen?

Tell me about this transformation.

You know, I' not even sure how it happened, to be honest with you, Aaron.

You know what?

I've always loved business.

You know, I've always called it a business show, not show business.

And I've always had an appetite to learn and insatiable appetite to learn more and more about business.

Since a kid, I love Rockefeller, and I love Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie.

And I couldn't learn enough about them in the Industrial Revolution and vertical integration.

And 100 years ago, we had, yo know, the Industrial Revolution.

Today, 100 years later we have the digital revolution.

And, you know the same principles that apply then apply now.

How do you produce the content and how do you vertically integrate where you take it from a concept to production to execution, to delivery to the consumer and goes straight to everybody worldwide on every device?

That was something that was a part of my DNA since I was a kid because I was always fascinated.

I was born in Detroit, Michigan, and my daddy worked at For Motor Company for a little over 30 years, and my granddaddy worked at Great Lakes Steel a little over 30 something years.

And these guys were the hardest working guys you'd ever know.

They neve they never called in a day sick.

My granddad, he got to work an hour early every day.

That taught himself how to read and drank really bad coffee that he didn't know was really bad coffee.

And eat out of a brown paper bag and that was his lunch.

And these guys love what they did.

And they showed up.

And after work, after they punched out, they came home and work some more and built cars in their driveway.

So I got that work ethi from my daddy and my granddaddy, and I got that idea of, you know, how to produce content in an assembly line type way.

And I started producing content that way and produce one show and another another another.

Next thing you know, I have 41 shows, and I'm dealing directly with every television station in the country.

And all the major advertisers.

And next thing you know, I had one of the largest privately held libraries in the world.

Next thing you know, I start putting networks on.

The next thing you know, we owned eight networks, including The Weather Channel, and it all started as a little kid watching, you know, this proces and coming to this convention.

And this is my 38th, my 38th consecutive year of coming to Nancy.

It was January of 81.

I was 19, and the first time I came was with my mother.

And I met my my second father, my mentor, Al Mazzini, and I met him upstairs.

It was at the New York Hilton, and he was upstairs on the 40 something floor.

And I walked into a suite and he was pitching all these guys, and he had his back to me and he was magical.

And he was telling them, I've got this great idea for a TV show.

And on my TV show, I have the biggest movie star in the world on my pilot, Burt Reynolds.

Look at this interview with Burt Reynolds on the set of Smokey and the bandit.

He's the biggest movie star in the world, and this is going to b the biggest show in the world.

And I'm going to tape it at 1230 in the afternoon, and I'm going to put it on th bird, the set, the bird at 2:00.

And they go, what's the bird?

And he goes, it's a satellite, guys.

And I'll tell you more about that technology.

And he goes, I'm going to put it on the bird at two, and you're going to run the show at seven.

They go, what's the name of the show, Alf?

He said Entertainment Tonight.

I watched hi sell that show in January of 81, and it went on the air September of 81.

He changed the face of television, al Mazzini.

And he became like a second father.

And he helped me learn the business.

And I watched him sell Entertainment Tonight in Star Search and Lifestyles of Rich and famous and solid gold and run away with the rich and famous.

And I just developed a family and friends.

That was just one of the greatest gifts God could ever give me is unbelievable.

People just so generous.

Whether it was alma senior Dick Robertson who ran Warner Brothers, and he's going to introduce me to a cheat, you know, to receive the brand, the Tartikoff Legacy Award.

On, here in a couple of days, Michael and Roger King, who gave us Wheel of Fortune, jeopardy!

Oprah.

And, and they gave us, you know, Inside Edition and Doctor Phil.

I mean, these guys change the face of television forever.

So you learned syndication from them as well.

I learned syndication directly from them.

But every year I came and I hung out with them.

I stalked them, you know, I had breakfast with Dic the other day, Dick Robertson.

And he said, I'll never forget when I saw you on TV, you walked in and you said, hey, can I sit in on your sales meetings?

He's like no one's ever asked that before.

And he goes, you just sat in our sales meeting an you watched us sell our shows.

And he goes, you were like a sponge in, you know, you're 19 years old, and I just you just have that appetite, and you, you have that fire in your belly.

You want to learn.

And you know, I love it, I love it.

I haven't had a job since I quit my pay per hour.

I used to throw the Heral Examiner and I got half a penny a paper, and I had to throw two papers to make a penny.

And then one day I got.

I got a penny of papers.

You got.

I'm in Chicago.

In Chicago, I was doing better than you.

And that's how they always pay the white guy more.

You see how that is?

You see tha only white guy I wa the only, like, out of 100 kids that they got, they always pay the white guy more.

You did.

But I'm not going to bring that up too soon.

Too soon.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

So anyway, so I got I had to work twice as hard, but that's okay.

I'm not bitter about it.

I'm just explaining to them.

So I'm a negotiator.

You're good.

Yeah.

That's joy, you see?

Ther you go.

That's what it is.

See?

So I had to throw two papers at make a painting.

And then one day guys saw me, Wayne Klein, he saw me performing at the Comedy Store, and he said, those jokes were funny.

I was 14 years old.

That's incredible.

The show was real people.

But he said, that's so funny.

And he said, who wrote those jokes?

I said, I did.

He says, I know some guy.

I know a guy may be interesting.

Can I get your phone number?

Give my phone number.

He calls me up and he says, guy says, can I speak to Byron?

I go speaking, he goes, my ma Wayne Klein says, you're funny.

And if my man Wayne Klein say you're funny, then you're funny.

And I go, oh, you gotta go, who's this guy?

This is Jimmy J.J. Walker, and this is 1974 75.

He is hotter than the sun.

He's the bit he's on good times.

And he says, you know, why don't you come write some jokes with us?

Where are you?

I'm 14.

That's incredible.

Real people was the show.

You got to catch up.

So then he goes.

He goes, well, you and I go, let me ask my mom.

Right.

I'll go.

So.

So my mom says, yeah, you can go write some jokes for him.

I go to his apartment.

I walk into his apartment and sitting there is David Letterman, who had just driven out from Indianapolis in a red pickup truck.

Jay Leno, who was sleepin in his car, Wayne Klein, Marty Nadler went on to write and produce Laverne and Shirley and Happy Days and Jimmy Walker and these guys, and they're in their 20s.

I'm 14, and we sit there and we learn the craft and the art of writing comedy and making people laugh.

That's amazing.

And that's amazing that that was another amazing gift from God that I'm sitting in.

And I'm like, what?

Jim Walker and David Letterman and Jay Leno and Jay is getting 200 bucks a week, and Jimmy Walke is paying Jay Leno $200 a week.

He's paying David Letterman $200 a week, and once again, I was upset.

I said, look, I said, Ja and Dave are getting 200 a week.

Why don't you pay me 200 bucks a week?

And he said, no.

He goes, I'm paying you more than Jay and Dave.

I go, how are you paying me more than Jay and Day?

Because you're learning, you know, he said no, that I wouldn't accept that.

Yeah, I was a little smarter than that.

And you're only 14.

I thought you might go.

Yeah, 14.

Get him for free.

So he's like, so he gave me 25 bucks for my first show, and I still have the check and framed in my office.

And I quit my paper out because $25.

I mean, you know, I'm still doing mine.

I had to throw 8000 newspapers to make 25 bucks.

And he says, I'm paying you more than Jay.

And Dave.

They're getting old, literally getting 200 bucks a week.

Byron, all you got to do is sell me ten jokes and you make it $250, and you're going to make Jay and Dave look like amateurs.

I said, you got a deal.

I never sold them ten jokes in a week ever in my life.

But so I think I think my best week was 50 bucks.

But he knew it.

He was here.

He knew it was him.

I was 14, he took it.

But I love Jay.

They were the great.

It was one of the greatest experience.

I'm so blessed and I am so blessed.

I'm just really fortunate to have learned what I wanted to do at a young age, and to do it and do it with all the passion in the world.

And I literally had never worked a day in my life since my paperwork on paper out.

And even when I had my paper up, I learned a lot about business.

And I'd be really interested in your progression because, I mean, from being a comedian and being so successful and then working with other comedians, putting other comedians on the air right?

I mean, that was suc a great show that that you had.

And it's all about comics only.

It's just regular bedtime, you know?

Okay.

Go ahead.

It's already past my bedtime and it's like 12 noon.

Yeah.

So so I just really interested in that next progression in terms of getting involved in not just the creation o content, but the ownership of, you know, what if, you know, just to going back in terms of working with other comedians, I am a comedian.

I'm a comedian first, and I love other comedians, and I love to help people.

I love to see people succeed.

Your success is my success.

I always say that's that's on our logo of our company.

Your success is our success.

If you succeed, everybody rises.

All boats rise.

Right.

So I just want to give othe comedians exposure, whether it's Comics and Leash or a 24 hour Comedy network comedy TV.

Funny you should ask.

You know, you know, you know, I just want people to laugh.

And I just want comedians to have big opportunities.

So ownership came for me.

Nobody can give me a job now when we give me a job.

So I had to learn how to give myself a job.

You know, that's the key.

It's business show, not show business.

And I wasn't going to wait for other people to hire me.

I was going to figure out how to hire myself.

You know, I'll never forget my mother and I went to Palm Springs.

I was a kid, and, we were driving in the really nice neighborhoo with all these beautiful homes.

And there was this wall that just went on forever.

And I'm like, wow, whose home is that?

Like, this wall goes on forever.

It's beautiful big estate.

And they she said, Walter Annenberg, Walter Annenberg.

And he has his own golf course there because Walter Annenberg is Jewish and they wouldn' let him into the country club.

And he built his home.

And as a kid, I never forgot that.

Well, they all let you in.

You build your own and you build your own.

You build your own and when she said that to me I thought, wow, that's a shame.

They wouldn't let him in.

But he's my new hero because he built something better.

So I'd be really interested in your take on industry and in terms of having to build your own, whether it be the kind of prejudic that that you just talk about.

And certainly, when you look at it, how slo the industry has been to change in terms of diversification how how do we accelerate that?

You know, the, diversity.

I mean, look, at the end of the day, diversity is great business.

You know, put aside is the right thing to do.

But I can honestly tell you it's the best thing to do.

The moneymaker.

I've put out movies with no diversity and the movies with the Varsity made a lot more money.

And that's established.

And that's a story that's, And I'm not in the business of teaching you that.

Yeah.

I don't need you to know that.

I will go do that.

Henry Ford said i best opportunities never lost.

Your competitors will always find it.

I'm not going to waste a lot of time teaching you about diversity.

I'm just going to do it and deposit the money, and eventually you'll figure it out.

You're kind of slow.

You may not.

I'm so not the first to say.

You're not the first to say that.

But I like you, I like you, an I'm just having fun with them.

But eventually, you know, I'm not going to explain.

You're not going to explain anymore.

You just do it, you know?

You just do it.

And I got to tell you something.

You know what?

Their issues You always got to have racism.

You just.

Are you just it's just going to be there as much as we all work to eradicate it.

But you have to learn to make it work for you.

And I've learned to make it work for me.

The resistance has made me unstoppable.

I need it the resistance to be who I am today.

To be honest with you, my white counterparts, a number of them didn't get enough resistance.

And when the waters got choppy, they sank because they didn't get enough resistance.

It's like a guy going to the gym.

If you bench press 30 pounds, your muscles are going to be okay.

If you bench press 500 pounds, you'r going to be the Incredible Hulk.

You're going to be Superman.

That resistance, that tha racism made me bench press more.

My succes is tied to the color of my skin because there was plenty of resistance to me because of the color of my skin.

I have plenty of I hav plenty of guys who work for me.

And I go and they go on the road, they do sales and I'm drilled down.

Why didn't you get the deal?

Why didn't you get the time period?

I can't tell you how many of my salespeople have said to me, and I said, you must be brutally honest as to wh you didn't get the time period.

You must tell me exactly what you what they said to you as to wh you didn't get the time period.

And I've had easily three of my salespeople say to me, I'm not going to do business with you as long as you work for that nigger.

And they've said it to them, to their face.

And I said, all right.

I said, now we getting somewhere.

This is what I needed to know, and this is what I need.

This is what I needed to hear to credible.

And once again, the sales call.

Real people jump in there.

Yeah, yeah.

So I said, now this is a defining moment.

I know who I am.

There is no walking away from me.

But you're white.

You can walk away.

You have to decide if you walk away because it is going to be harder working for me than a white guy.

This is the moment you must decide.

Do you stay and fight or do UK?

And without exception, they all stayed and fight and they made better salesman out of those guy because they said that to them it was something I could never give them.

I couldn't take their constitution to that level.

That's just one example of that resistance making me unstoppable.

So you need I needed both.

I've seen guys have a red carpet rolled out for them, get a little choppy.

They trip and fall.

But I've also had the resistance.

I know that if I lost it all tomorrow, I could build it back bigger and better.

Day after tomorrow.

You know what's interesting though?

Your reaction, I think, isn't as common as it should be.

I think a lot of people when they face that resistance, they give up their they, they it, it has such a negative impact on them.

And it just that kind of resistanc affects each person differently.

And I think I'm not saying you're unique, but I think you're you're you're rare, especially at the level you take it, you take that resistance and you reverse it and multiply it by 10 or 100.

Not that many people can do that and put fuel in it and make it feel.

But everybody has their resistance, whether it's ageism or sexism or you're Hispanic or you're Asian or you're handicapped, everybody's going to have that resistance or stupid.

Oh yeah, you're just, you know, brain donor.

But you look at you, you don't need it.

Your brain at some point to science and you made it.

I'm impressed by you wit what's left, what's what's left.

So what I'm saying is, is tha everybody has that resistance.

But in there, Go also gave you something special to go beyond it.

And you got to know that and accept that.

And you are a gift and you're going to move through it.

And that resistance is needed.

Because, man, I'm telling you, the ones who don't get the resistance, who forget about it, they get a little, it gets a little choppy, and they go down like a paper like bam, like what happened i that got not enough resistance.

So one of the things that I you know, you've been to Napa, this is my 38th consecutive 38 years.

January of 81 was my first one.

How has it changed?

How great question it is Aaron.

It has changed dramatically.

You know, when I first cam and was at the New York Hilton, that was my first one, and we waited 45 minutes to go up the elevator to see everybody.

And and then it got even bigger after that.

And it got into the 80s and later, I think we had 15, 20,000 people come into this thing.

Right.

And then the market, when I first came here, you could only own seven TV stations.

Seven now you have some guys are on 200 TV stations.

So the market clearly has consolidated major, major consolidation.

So you don't have as many people here.

You have 1 or 2 people programing, you know 200.

It's just smaller.

You know companies gobbled up other companies.

So there's that consolidation.

What we have done that we have to correct is we've taken away that independent spirit and we've homogenized this industry, and we have to bring back that independent spirit.

If you look at the biggest shows that we've put on television, it was from my second father album, Any Entertainment Tonight?

He was an independent.

He put that on and here we are 40 years later and we're still living with his idea from 1981.

It was God bless his soul, Michael and Roger King God bless their souls, giving us Wheel of Fortune in jeopardy.

They gave us an insight inside it.

It's still on right?

It was.

It was Dick Robertson when he was in independent at Telepictures.

Then he got bought by Warne Brothers.

But as an independent, he gave us a show called People's Court.

It's that independent spirit.

That's the spirit that runs through the wall.

These corporate guys, this temporary hired help, they run up to the wall, they don't hurt themselves.

You need independents like us.

We run through the wall on fire and then get up and do it again.

That's what makes this, this, this industry so special.

And just a few examples of look at what they did and how their work still stands 40 years later.

Then you get these guys that get hired by the by the studios and they act like they know what they're doing.

They'll know what they're doing.

Pop pop pop pop pop pop.

95% of their shows get cancer.

No no no no no no.

There's a reaso why I have 41 shows on the air.

I'm an independent.

I'm an independent.

Every day I run through the wall and all my competitors.

No, not all of some of them do.

Some of them not all.

What do you think the landscape is going to look like in ten years?

Streaming is is aggressively coming at a rapid pace.

Streaming is everything.

It's now making u 20% of the viewership streaming.

Wow.

Think about that.

Taking us back to like the biggest thing we have at our company is local now.

Local now is the biggest thing we have.

We have the technology to bring you local news, weather, sports and traffic via the web streaming.

No one has that.

And now you're going to start to see us marry content with streaming now.

So it's going to be the way you and I grew up.

You and I grew up.

We watched the local television station and they gave us local news, weather, sports and traffic, and then it gave us premium content.

Then we went and we watch Gunsmoke and then we I know how what year I'm the Beverly Hillbillies.

I know what shows you.

You're watching Batman.

You're going on Bonanza.

That's what local now is.

We've taken localization, local news, weather, sports, traffic.

No one's ever done that.

No one's ever done that.

Did mention no one's ever done that?

And we are marrying that with premium content.

And it's free.

Ava, we're not charging a nickel.

It's free.

About advertising, video on demand, Avod.

It's free.

Local now is an unstoppable, unstoppable force in nature.

That's the biggest thing we have.

And that's at our company local.

Now you download it in 30s and now you have local news, weather, sports, traffic and then you can have movies and TV shows, everything.

That's it with our ad revenue drive, ad revenue free, free.

We got to get away from paying all this crazy money.

It's a lot of money going out that area.

We can entertain you.

You don't need to pay a bunch of money at least.

Like it's big enough.

It's a big enough pie where there are millions and millions of peopl who will say, I'm going to pay ten, 15, 20, 30 bucks a month for this.

But then again, I need my local now, gives me localizatio and gives me content for free.

Local.

Now that's the hardest thing we have going on the it's.

Let me tell you something, local now is so hot, even the sun is going to say, man can I get some air conditioning?

That's the bad right now and I know.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

You got to touch.

You got it.

Okay.

You always got paid more than me and kind of penny a paper.

I only got a half a penny.

I. Hi, I'm Aaron Harbor.

The goal of my show is to inform viewer about a diverse range of topics, from our country's leadership to economic and tax policies, to energy and environmental issues.

With the participation of the most significant stakeholders in each arena.

Our long form approach gives each guest the time to fully speak his or her mind, and gives the audience all the facts, allowing everyon to draw their own conclusions.

Thank God you do your homework, and just doing what you do is enough to begin to let them know what's happening.

I strive to bring together guests with perspectives from across the entire political spectrum to promote problem resolution through civil discourse.

Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck and Rush Bay frightening people and using emotion, fear, guilt, and racism.

What a bunch from the right and the left.

I've personally experienced our democratic system from the inside, and I use my knowledge and expertise on the show to get clarification on major points and expand the discussion to ensure my audience gets the uncut truth.

What is this bigotr against a third party candidate?

Do the two parties ow all the voters and everyone else is shut up and stand in line.

We were on the campus together at Princeton University.

Her Majesty does not look any different than she did, in those days, and I wish I could say the same about myself.

I'm an ardent supporte of transparency and government, and strive to play an active role in bringing out all the facts related to our nation's most challenging issues.

One of the things I've learned in life, and you certainly have learned from doing your show.

Did you got smart people, bu that torn apart the polarized.

You get into a media environment where it's not things like your show, but the shout shows on talk radio or cable TV in which there's just this tendency to score political points and be polarized.

Since my days and national talk radio, I've upheld a tradition of being truly nonpartisan, something which seems rare on the airwaves today.

Depending on your point of view, a decision of the Supreme Court might be the wrong one.

I've also found my guests talk to others involved in our nation's leadership, and they have encouraged the to come on the program as well.

We are not final because we're infallible, but we are infallible because we're final.

Now.

No one knows what that means.

But what I know.

But what it means is we do not have the last word because we are so brilliant.

We are, of course, brilliant, but only only in the sense that somebody has to have the last word.

It's the focus on issues rather than personal attacks that makes guests comfortable and gives them the chance to tell their entire story.

I simply let guests explain their perspective completely, then dig deeper for the audience.

By drawing from my own knowledge and experience.

Democracy succeeds when you're giving more and more things to people.

But the years ahead, we're going to have to ask more of them in taxes and expect less from government.

There doesn't seem to be anyone in either party that has any kind of appetite for asking more of people tax wise.

Am I wrong about that?

No, you're probably right.

And that's a flaw in democracy.

Thanks for taking the time to check out the show.

I hope this has been helpful in illustrating the nation's need for a balanced, nonpartisan progra to shed light on today's issues.

For more information, please go to Harbor tv.com or email producer at Harbor tv.com.

And thanks for watching.