Entertainment Studios, NAAAOM Petition FCC for Comcast Investigation
Along with suing Comcast for racial discrimination in program carriage and contracting decisions, Entertainment Studios and the National Association of African American-Owned Media (NAAAOM) are petitioning the FCC to investigate the cable company's compliance with conditions on diverse programming stemming…
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from its buy of NBCUniversal. In a filing Friday in docket 10-56, Entertainment Studios and NAAAOM said Comcast violated its voluntary commitment in the NBCUniversal takeover to add to its carriage four independently owned and operated programmers in which African-Americans have a majority or sizable ownership interest. Instead, they said, Comcast "has chosen to deal with organizations that are nothing more than front organizations." Two such channels Comcast subsequently added are Revolt, spearheaded by Sean "Diddy" Combs, and Aspire, launched by Earvin "Magic" Johnson. But Entertainment Studios and NAAAOM said GMC TV manages Aspire and Johnson seemingly spends almost no time at the network, while Comcast supposedly has an ownership stake in Revolt, thus making it not independent. Meanwhile, the complainants said, Entertainment Studios -- which is wholly owned and operated by an African-American -- was passed over and continues to be passed over even though Comcast still has two other channels to fill. In its petition, NAAAOM and Entertainment Studios ask the FCC to seek data on the ownership and management structures of Aspire and Revolt, on the numerous other proposals Comcast supposedly received from African-American-owned and -operated channels but passed on, and on Comcast's processes to find other channels to satisfy the condition terms. They also said if the data indicates Comcast isn't complying, the FCC should "take immediate corrective steps" and consider penalties such as fines or nonrenewal of licenses. In a statement Monday, Comcast said, “Since NAAAOM’s frivolous lawsuit has gone nowhere, it is now trying the same string of inflammatory, inaccurate, and unsupported allegations before the FCC. Just as a court has already once dismissed their case having found no plausible claim for relief, we believe this complaint is also completely without merit and will defend vigorously ourselves. Comcast is proud of our outstanding record supporting and fostering diverse programming, including programming from African American owned and controlled cable channels. We currently carry more than 100 networks geared toward diverse audiences, including multiple networks owned or controlled by minorities.” Neither Aspire nor Revolt commented. The Entertainment Studios/NAAAOM suit against Comcast and Time Warner Cable was dismissed in 2015 (see 1508100017) and subsequently amended and refiled. Entertainment Studios and NAAAOM also are suing Charter Communications Ref: 1603250028]) on allegations of racial discrimination in programming (see 1603250028).