Sean Combs may have risen to fame in front of the camera, but as he’s aged, the rapper/ mogul has increasingly carved out space for himself behind the camera. At first, that was through producing and managing, but in recent years, it’s been through running Revolt TV. At this point, the music channel reaches about 22.8 million homes, but if a bid for a brand new channel is accepted, that number will more than triple.
According to Bloomberg, Diddy just put in a bid of $200 million for the cable channel Fuse. Right now, that particular station is owned by MSG and is available to 74 million homes in the United States. If the station sounds familiar, it’s probably because it once ran a program in which people took off their clothes while music played in the background. It was called Pants Off Dance Off. It was hosted by Jodie Sweetin, and it was not the worst thing on television.
If Combs’ bid is accepted and that’s a really big if at this point, he would reportedly move to immediately convert Fuse into Revolt TV. That sounds weird, but it actually happens on a fairly regular basis. Think of distribution agreements like locations and liquor licenses. Even if a restaurant is failing, the land and the liquor license are barriers to entry others will need. So, when Oprah started OWN, she didn’t simply invent a new channel, she converted Discovery Health, which was already in a lot of homes. That process saves a ton of leg work and keeps unpopular networks from hanging for too long.
$200 million sounds like a lot of money, but for a cable network with those distribution numbers, it’s actually on the low end. Financial analysts reportedly expected bids to fall between $200 and $250 million, well below MSG’s sizeable asking price of $400 million. Rumor has it there are other bids in play right now, but as of press time, no one is really sure what anyone else may have bid.
Considering they suddenly own the content, there’s a possibility they could decide to continue running some of Fuse’s content and mash it together with Revolt TV’s originals. If they do, I really, really hope they keep Insane Clown Posse Theater, which features the ICP guys watching modern musical videos and firing off ridiculous comments, Mystery Science Theater 3000 style. You can check out a sample episode below that features the guys consuming “Call Me Maybe” and saying all sorts of inappropriate things about bath salts and gay sex.
Warning: This video is NSFW-ish. You’re probably fine, but if you’re boss is super straight-laced, I’d probably save this for at home…
