Media Executive Byron Allen’s $10 Billion Lawsuit Against McDonald’s Gets The Green Light, Company Accused Of Refusing To Advertise On Black-Owned Networks

Media Executive Byron Allen’s $10 Billion Lawsuit Against McDonald’s Gets The Green Light, Company Accused Of Refusing To Advertise On Black-Owned Networks

Fast-food chain McDonald’s has been ordered to move forward in television mogul Byron Allen’s billion-dollar lawsuit against them.

If you didn’t know, in May of 2021, Byron Allen filed legal claims that McDonald’s is racially discriminative due to their refusal to place advertisements on Black-owned media channels.

Byron Allen

Byron Allen’s production company, Entertainment Studios, owns a total of 12 networks, including its most well-known one, The Weather Channel. According to the comedian-turned-businessman, McDonald’s has reportedly denied contractual opportunities to market on every single one of Entertainment Studios’ outlets — this includes; Weatherscan, Local Now, Automotive.TV, Cars.TV, Comedy.TV, ES.TV, JusticeCentral.TV, MyDestination.TV, Pets.TV, and Recipe.TV.

Because of this, court documents read that Allen is going after the enterprise for $10 billion in damages. Additionally, he alleged that the enterprise has only given an estimated amount of 0.3% of its $1.6 billion annual promotions budget to Black-led corporations that specialize in Communications.

McDonald’s responded to Allen’s suit with a statement announcing their mission to increase diversity within their franchise.

“Together with our franchises, we have doubled down on our relationships with diverse-owned partners. This includes increasing our spend with diverse-owned media from 4 percent to 10 percent and with Black-owned media from 2 percent to 5 percent of total national advertising over the next four years.”

In a decision this past Friday (Sept. 16), Los Angeles’ U.S. District Judge Fernando Olguin granted Allen the go-ahead to prove that McDonald’s unfair selectiveness on where they choose to run their promotions violated federal and civil rights in the state of California.

The judge did not rule on the merits; however, this definitely serves as a huge step in the right direction for Allen, whose case was said to have been previously thrown out last December.

Although these aren’t the first accusations of McDonald’s practicing “racial stereotyping” their representative, Loretta Lynch, believes that Allen’s suit is “about revenue, not race.”

What are your thoughts? Share with us in the comments below!

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