Comcast to Add Black and Asian-American Channels
Seeking to neutralize political opposition to its proposed merger with NBC Universal Inc., Comcast Corp. says it will add four cable networks owned, or partly owned, by African Americans over the next eight years, as well as a new English-language channel aimed at Asian Americans.
Those provisions are part of separate agreements Comcast executives signed with civil rights groups.
The African American agreement will be filed Friday with the Federal Communications Commission, Comcast said, and the Asian American agreement was filed earlier in the week. Both call for Comcast to boost diversity in its corporate management and entertainment content and to establish councils to review diversity projects.
This is not insignificant.
Media plays a significant role – for better or worse – in how we view the world. And given the long history of stereotypical portrayals of people of color on television, it is definitely a good thing that there will be more options for seeing people of color that will be developed by people of color.
It’ll be interesting to see how these new channels position themselves to stand out from the current channels like BET, TV One, and TV Asia.
Shout out to Leadership Conference coalition member organizations, Asian American Justice Center, the NAACP, the National Urban League, the Japanese American Citizens League, and OCA for brokering the deals with Comcast.