Carriage Complaint Comes from 'Serial Litigants,' Comcast Says
Entertainment Studios and NAAAOM are "serial litigants ... willing to sue anyone in the industry that declines to offer ... millions of dollars a year in carriage fees for programming that does not appear to enjoy market acceptance," Comcast said…
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Tuesday in opposition to a petition by the programmer and National Association of African American Owned Media seeking an FCC investigation of the cable company (see 1603280030). Entertainment Studios/NAAAOM claims that Comcast violated its voluntary commitment in the NBCUniversal takeover approval process to add up to four independently owned and operated programmers in which African-Americans have a majority or sizable ownership interest are baseless, Comcast said. The complaint offers no evidence why the Aspire and Revolt channels Comcast added to its lineup aren't independent or aren't majority or substantially owned by African-Americans, Comcast said. Any investigation would likely go beyond the scope of FCC enforcement authority, it said, adding any claims of intentional race discrimination are better left to courts. Comcast said that it has met repeatedly with Entertainment Studios and founder Byron Allen and reviewed his carriage proposals, "but exercised its business judgment to determine [the Entertainment Studios] channels lacked sufficient consumer interest to warrant the ... dollars and bandwidth that carriage of those channels would entail." Comcast said that the Entertainment Studios claims of racial discrimination because its networks aren't receiving carriage "is unadulterated bunk." Comcast's filing was in docket 10-56. Entertainment Studios/NAAAOM didn't comment.