BuzzFeed has agreed to sell a 52% majority stake to media entrepreneur Byron Allen for $120 million.
This also ends the two-decade run of founder Jonah Peretti as chief executive.
Allen Family Digital will acquire 40 million shares at $3 apiece, a 265.9% premium over Friday's closing price.
BuzzFeed stock surged roughly 156% in after-hours trading following the news of the sale, according to Reuters.
The deal is structured as $20 million in cash at closing and a $100 million promissory note due in five years, carrying 5% annual interest.
"Our vision is to build on the iconic foundation of BuzzFeed and HuffPost by expanding into free-streaming video, audio and user-generated content.
As of this moment, BuzzFeed is officially chasing YouTube to become another premier free video streaming service," Allen said in a statement.
Peretti will transition to a newly created role as President of BuzzFeed AI, while Allen takes over as Chairman and CEO.
"After 20 years as CEO, I'm excited to switch my focus to a more hands-on role developing products and technology that are only possible because of recent advances in AI," Peretti shared.
He added that the company will undergo significant cost cuts ahead of Allen's arrival, with its studio division and food brand Tasty spinning off as an independent entity.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of May.
BuzzFeed's Long Fall
The company once turned down a $650 million acquisition offer from Disney at its peak.
It went public in 2021 through a blank-check merger that valued it at $1.5 billion, but its shares have fallen more than 98% since then.
Q1 2026 revenue came in at only $31.6 million, down 12.4% year-over-year, while net loss widened to $15.1 million from $12.5 million a year earlier.
In March, BuzzFeed warned investors it faced "substantial doubt" about its ability to continue as a growing concern.
Allen owns The Weather Channel, 13 local TV stations, and 10 HD television networks through Allen Media Group.
He built his empire by acquiring distressed media assets.
The mogul recently secured the CBS late-night slot vacated by Stephen Colbert, with "Comics Unleashed" replacing "The Late Show" starting May 22.
What This Means for Digital Media
The sale closes a chapter on the era of Facebook-fueled digital publishing.
Vice filed for bankruptcy; Vox is reportedly weighing a breakup; and BuzzFeed just sold for a fraction of its former value.
Allen is betting his brand, YouTube reach, and AI-powered production can compete better as CTV continues pulling ad spend away from linear TV.
His visionfor Buzzfeed mirrors what YouTube is already doing, consolidating the living room as the primary battleground for digital media attention.
Here are three things brands and media buyers can take from this deal:
- An audience without monetization is unsustainable. Brands should audit whether partnerships drive durable revenue.
- AI and streaming are now table stakes. Teams should evaluate whether their distribution reaches CTV audiences.
- Distressed media assets can still hold value. Buyers should weigh audience loyalty alongside market valuation.
Streaming platforms are already building walls around their ad inventory. Disney proved it at CES by cutting agencies out of the creative process entirely.
Our Take: Can Allen Do What Peretti Couldn't?
We think that Allen can fix BuzzFeed’s monetization problem, but maybe not its cultural one.
Peretti built a company around platform reach without creating enough owned revenue to survive when Facebook stopped feeding publishers.
BuzzFeed had a loyal audience, brand recognition, and internet fluency, but too much of this value depended on someone else’s distribution system.
We believe that Allen’s advantage is discipline.
His background is built around distribution, syndication, and monetization, which are exactly the areas BuzzFeed failed to control.
The risk, though, is that streaming and AI may just solve the wrong problem.
They may create more content and more places to run it, but they don't automatically make BuzzFeed feel necessary to audiences raised on TikTok.
HuffPost may be the stronger asset. News fits streaming far more naturally than quizzes and nostalgia-driven listicles.
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