Griffin highlighted how Viacom's UP and Time Warner's The WB merged and "the first casualties were African-American shows" (Girlfriends, All of Us, Everybody Hates Chris). He attributed this to the fact that "advertisers have only been willing to pay for a limited amount of African-American impressions and will not pay for every African-American view generated." He further summarized, "The root of the problem is this: advertisers' unwillingness to allocate minority marketing budgets in proportion to viewership ratings."
Convinced that Comcast would correct this problem, Griffin added that "some of the very systems at the core of the Comcast media empire were birthed by African-American media owners" and how "thousands of minorities in leadership positions at Comcast have been invaluable" to him as an owner of African-American Media.
This all became a point of debate during the question period as Rep. Buyer singled out suggestions that minority ownership would relate to minority programming. Rep. Buyer thought this claim defied economic principles, that total audience must be enough to cover production. But, it was maintained by Griffin that, while advertisers may have paid for all 10 million viewers of Seinfeld, a show with a predominantly African-American audience would maybe pay only 8 million of its 10 million viewers because advertisers have traditionally had a limited budget for minorities and have built this "defect into the market."
Rainbow/PUSH spokesman Jackson's testimony [full statement] contrasted Griffin's faith in the merger to correct the landscape for minorities. Jackson put the merger in the "context of economic emancipation" and wondered what "Comcast's Return on Investment (ROI) in assisting in the economic empowerment of African American and underserved communities" would be and asked why it would be "good business for Comcast to address two of the nation's most important challenges: creating jobs and helping to connect every American, especially people of color, to vitally needed news information and broadband internet services."
Jackson's statement commented on media ownership:
There are three minority owners in the market, controlling a total of three stations, or less than 5 percent of all the commercial radio stations in Chicago: WJOB-AM 1230, controlled by Hammond, Indiana-based Vasquez Development, a Latino- female-owned company; WLTH-AM 1370, controlled by WLTH Radio, an African- American-owned company; and WVON-AM 1690, controlled by Chicago-based and African-American-owned Midway Broadcasting. Vasquez Development, WLTH Radio and Midway Broadcasting each own just a single station.
Media ownership in Chicago doesn't reflect the diversity of its population. Racial and ethnic minorities are 37 percent of the population in the Chicago TV market; 38 percent of population in the Chicago radio market; and nearly two-thirds of the population in the city of Chicago. However, racial and ethnic minorities own less than 4 percent of Chicago's full-power commercial radio and television stations. Women own just 6 percent of Chicago's full-power commercial radio and television stations, despite comprising over half the population.
We want to make sure that independently owned and controlled minority cable networks don't find it harder to gain carriage if this deal happens.
Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the civil rights community held out great hope that the emerging cable industry would be reflective of communities of color in programming, ownership and staffing. Our community hoped to not only own cable networks but cable franchises as well. But this simply hasn't happened.
Jackson noted the need for corporate titans like Comcast or NBC who have the power to shape images and cultures to be held accountable for what they do or fail to do.
The witnesses for Comcast and NBC Universal, for the most part, detailed what they would do to build support for the merger. Madison of NBC Universal [full statement] said four diversity councils were being established and the geographic footprint of Telemundo would be expanded. Waz of Comcast [full statement] detailed commitment to continuing investment in broadcasting (which many communities of color depend upon) and announced that 10 new independently operated and controlled channels would be launched with a focus on ensuring minorities would end up as operators and controllers of this channel.
Rep. Boucher asked both witnesses for Comcast and NBC to specifically state that their increase in minority ownership and focus on diversity would actually result in diverse programming. Neither could commit. Madison, instead, took this opportunity to explain the industry had long way to go in order to be more diverse and inclusive but noted that shows like Undercovers, The Event and Outlaw (starring Jimmy Smits) would be coming on with minority characters.
It was Rep. Waters who put an end to this charade all in the name of diversity. She pointed out that the merger had flown under the radar until she requested an extension of the comment period. She said neither Comcast nor NBC had made any commitments to diversity but now that hearings were happening they were coming forward with ideas, many which were offered in the past week (the plan for creating 10 independent channels was offered days ago). She demonstrated that the corporations were only making concessions for diversity and consumers because there now existed a huge opportunity for both corporations to benefit.
Rep. Waters stated, "You don't have diverse companies," and explained they need help to become more diverse. She called them out for not really answering Rep. Boucher's question about minority ownership leading to minority programming. She went through a list of MSNBC and NBC news shows emphasizing the lack of diversity. She noted that if this goes through and there is no way to force the resulting entity to maintain certain commitments to diversity and the wider public, certain threats to democracy could present themselves. And, she closed by saying, "I want you to know you have failed miserably."
In conclusion, the hearing put on display the tactics Comcast and NBC Universal are using to get the merger through. First, they are already behaving as if they have merged. Two, they are selling it under the guise of increasing diversity and minority ownership.
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