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A lawsuit against Comcast, Time Warner Cable Inc., Rev. Al Sharpton and the NAACP alleges that the media companies discriminated against black-owned businesses and paid activists like Sharpton to “whitewash” its practices. The complaint alleges that Comcast gave large donations to Sharpton, the NAACP and other civil rights groups to make it appear that the cable company was promoting diversity, even while it was failing to follow through on a promise to do so.
The lawsuit, seeking $20 billion, was filed in Los Angeles federal court Friday by Entertainment Studios, a television company founded by black producer and comedian Byron Allen and the National Association of African-American Owned Media (NAAAOM). The complaint, which comes as regulators mull a $45-billion merger between Comcast and TWC, alleges that Comcast has refused to do business with Allen and other black media executives.
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The lawsuit also accuses Sharpton, the National Action Network (the non-profit civil rights organization he founded in 1991), the NAACP and the National Urban League, claiming that the groups signed “sham diversity agreements” with Comcast in exchange for donations, knowing that the cable company would leverage the agreements to mask its discriminatory practices.
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Allen, who says he first approached the distributor seven years ago, said in a phone interview that he’d been put off by Comcast executives year after year. One executive allegedly told him that the company was “not trying to create any more Bob Johnsons,” referring to the millionaire founder of Black Entertainment Television, which was sold to Viacom in 2001 for $3 billion.
“This is why black-owned media is becoming extinct,” Allen said. “It’s economic genocide.”
In 2010, Comcast signed a “memorandum of understanding” with civil rights groups as part of an effort to win approval for its merger with NBC Universal. In the agreement, the cable company committed to adding 10 new minority owned and operated networks, at least four of which would be run by African Americans. Sharpton, who lobbied for the merger in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission and signed on to the memorandum, said that the company’s 2010 meeting with minority leaders was the most important factor in his decision to support Comcast’s bid.
He was given a job as host for MSNBC’s PoliticsNation in August 2011, six months after the merger was approved — a move that raised questions about a potential conflict of interest. The complaint alleges that the position was part of a quid-pro-quo deal for Sharpton’s approval of the merger, as was $140,000 in donations to his National Action Network.
They pay him a little bit of money instead of spending the tens of millions and billions they should be paying to the black community,” Allen said.
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Despite the goals laid out in the memorandum, the lawsuit says that Comcast now distributes only one black-owned channel, the Africa Network, which is run by a former Comcast executive, and that the company’s other purportedly black-owned channels are actually controlled by white-owned businesses.
“Defendants NAACP, National Urban League, and Al Sharpton’s National Action Network signed onto the MOUs with Comcast knowing — and agreeing — that Comcast would use the MOUs to perpetuate civil rights violations against 100% African American–owned media companies, including Entertainment Studios,” the complaint reads.
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According to a New York Times and Center for Public Integrity investigation published last year, the NAACP received $30,000 in donations from Comcast between 2004 and 2012. The National Urban League, another defendant listed in the complaint, received $835,000. Both organizations expressed support for a merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable. (For the record, lots of companies routinely and regularly donate money to such groups.)
Speaking with Variety, Sharpton said that Allen had approached various civil rights groups for support in getting his channels carried, but had been turned down because Entertainment Studios’ networks were “below the standards of what we wanted to support.”
Allen’s network operates eight channels and distributes 36 shows including Cars.TV, which won an Emmy for “Outstanding Lifestyle Program” in 2012. According to Allen’s attorney, Skip Miller, Entertainment Studios is the only black-owned multi-channel producer in the U.S. and its content is carried by Verizon, AT&T, RCN and a number of other distributors.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/24/lawsuit-accuses-comcast-al-sharpton-of-discriminating-against-black-owned-media/
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