Sean \
Music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs is the latest Black owner of a media company to take on General Motors. Combs wrote an open letter Thursday challenging GM to do better in terms of economic inclusion. He seeks for GM and other corporations to more fairly distribute their advertising spending to include more Black-owned media companies. Short of that, he hinted at a boycott. The letter Combs ran on REVOLT, his cable network’s entertainment and news site, and tweeted was titled, WE DEMAND MORE: A LETTER FROM SEAN COMBS. “When confronted by the leaders of several Black-owned media companies, General Motors listed my network, REVOLT, as an example of the Black-owned media it supports,” Combs wrote in the letter. “While REVOLT does receive advertising revenue from GM, our relationship is not an example of success. Instead, REVOLT, just like other Black-owned media companies, fights for crumbs while GM makes billions of dollars every year from the Black community.” GM spokesman Pat Morrissey reacted to Combs’ letter saying that GM has agreed to hold several meetings over the next few weeks with Black-owned media and has vowed to boost the amount of ad dollars it spends with Black-owned media. “In 2021, for example, we doubled our spend with Black-owned media groups to 2%,” Morrissey said. “We will increase our spend with this important segment to 4% in 2022, and will continue to grow our spend thereafter with a target of 8% by 2025.” Combs’ letter comes after Byron Allen — who owns Allen Media Group, which owns the Weather Channel — and six others ran an ad in March 28’s Detroit Free Press calling GM CEO Mary Barra racist for what they describe as years of refusing to meet with them. The group charged GM with spending less than 0.5% of its annual advertising budget with Black-owned media. GM disputes that, saying it is 2%. After that first ad ran in the Free Press, GM had scheduled a meeting between Barra, Allen and the others. But days later, Allen and the others ran the ad again in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Michigan Chronicle. They did so because they said GM was making the meeting agenda about GM’s donations to Black causes rather than to discuss business. GM denounced the ad as being full of “factual inaccuracies and character assault.” The automaker canceled the group’s meeting with Barra, saying instead GM would hold a series of smaller meetings with all of its Black-owned media partners.
