The National Coalition of African American Owned Media derided the overtures made by Comcast to promote diversity in a number of ways, comparing seed money for minority entrepreneurs to paper clip money and calling the promise to carry four African-American channels entirely inadequate.
Stanley E. Washington, NCAAOM President & CEO stated, “Comcast has approximately 100,000 employees and spends more than $20 million per year on paperclips. Their meaningless pledge confirms that Comcast believes African American subscribers are not worth more than the paperclips on their desk. African American subscribers make up approximately 40% of Comcast’s $36 billion annual revenue, representing $15 billion annually.”
Washington said that Comcast cable systems can carry 500 channels, and that 50 African-American-owned channels would be an acceptable minimum, not four. He said that as it stands now, the company pays $8B annually on program licensing, only $2M of which goes to African-American-owned programming companies.
In a statement spelling out its next steps, NCAAOM said, “In light of this highly insulting post-merger promise, we’re stepping-up the Comcast Boycott to increase visibility of the huge economic contribution from African American subscribers to Comcast monthly/annual revenue.”
