Keep My Name Out Of Your Mouth! Diddy, Africa Channel Rip Comcast Over Byron Allen Case

want to support Bontemps pilchard roller, be sure to join our fan club, every dollar you give us supports our daily digital shuttle, the daily digital show here that

keep

s it black and real like a hot roller unfiltered supports Roland Martin unfiltered daily digital program by visiting Roland Martin at filter com, you can make this possible yesterday. He issued an official statement basically telling Comcast to stop using my damn

name

now? Of course, Comcast has been fighting with Byron Allen over his lawsuit against him for not carrying his Network, so they went to the Supreme Court, where the Supreme Court will rule on a part of the lawsuit that determined where we can move forward with the loss and what legal argument you can use.

So Comcast has been doing Comcast has been saying, hey, wait a long look at all these other black networks that are given opportunities to mention television, one that they mention the revolt, of course, their network that they mentioned aspired to, which he was hitting Magic Johnson. My understanding of needles has now been sold. I'm trying to confirm that I'll get more details, you talked about afro TV and some other black networks that you've actually launched as well as Latin American networks, did you drop this letter? Let's say you're not very happy that my

name

and network have been revoked.

I have recently been mentioned by Comcast in reference to the U.S. Supreme Court's Comcast Byron Allen

case

as an example of Comcast's inclusive practices regarding African American-owned cable networks. Well, it is true that we are in business with Comcast, it is not accurate to use my name or my network as an example of inclusion. I do not want my name to be used accurately, so I must speak my truth. I also want to make it clear that this

case

is now about much more than cable distribution, it is about the civil rights of millions. of African Americans and other minorities it is first important for people to truly understand what is at stake in their efforts to get Byron's lawsuit dismissed.

Comcast has taken an unlawful approach that could weaken fundamental civil rights protections. I have a problem with this Civil Rights. The Act of 1866, section 1981, was designed to ensure that black people can do business in this country and are not denied because of their race. Comcast argues that this law only applies if racial discrimination is the only factor leading to its refusal. businesses that would be extremely difficult to prove successful, it will be much more difficult for any victim of discrimination to seek justice in the courts by taking this stance at the Supreme Court. Comcast has put its legal tactics before the rights of millions of Americans to be heard this is not okay above anything else my goal has always been to achieve true economic inclusion for black people how can Comcast suggest that it stands for diversity and inclusion if you attack the laws that lay the foundation for economic inclusion what good are any of

your

efforts if you are fighting to make it more difficult for victims of discrimination to be heard in court.

Comcast has made this about much more than Byron Allen and now the civil rights of my children and my community are at stake, to be clear, anything that makes it more difficult. Fighting discrimination is wrong. Comcast is choosing to be on the wrong side of history when it comes to the revolt. I can only share the truth of my experience. Starting an independent cable network is incredibly difficult in a capital-intensive country. The start we received from Comcast, which was a condition. The US government's approval for Comcast to acquire Universal MC was important, but it is not the level of support needed to build a successful Black-owned network, not even close.

Since that launch, our relationship has not grown and the revolt has not yet spread. Comcast in the most affordable packages nor revolt is available in all markets that would allow us to serve our target audience. Comcast spends billions of dollars on content networks each year, but only a few million go to Black-owned networks like Revolt. Supporting diversity is unacceptable, and economic inclusion requires real partnership. The only way for Black-owned networks to grow and prosper is with significant and consistent financial support; Otherwise, they are set up to fail. The revolt has never been in a position to truly compete on a fair playing field because it has not received the economic and distribution support necessary for real economic inclusion our relationship with Comcast is the illusion of economic inclusion instead of using this case to diminish civil rights protections for millions of Americans.

Comcast should use this as an opportunity to listen to a community. it depends and, above all, do better hmm, that was Diddy, yesterday well, today Paula Madison, one of the owners of Africa Channel and former NBC Universal executive, issued her own statement. Africa Channels' relationship with Comcast has been cordial and at times. even jovial, but our economic relationship cannot be described as good. Yes, Comcast has distributed THC in business since 2005 in my family's investment business. It is the largest shareholder with approximately 4 million subscribers, but has not significantly expanded our subscriber base beyond approximately 2 million. subscribers in 2011, during the MOU process, TAC requested that Comcast count it among the three

channel

s it will launch, believing that those new

channel

s will be distributed to tens of millions of Comcast subscribers because TAC already broadcast honestly to two million homes from Comcast.

TAC was denied. until we were ineligible, in fact, Comcast is the largest distributor of our small independent cable network at the time. Comcast assured the leaders of the National n-double a-c-p Action Network, the National Urban League, that Comcast would increase the number of TAC subscribers from 2 million to 6 million, which for a small independent cable network would have resulted in a palpable economic boost, eventually TAC received only half of the promised increase since TAC has been in talks with Comcast about carrying additional cable. We have been told that bringing TAC on demand could be a possible solution, representatives say that Comcast is considering networks with zero to very low license fees and therefore with virtually no leverage, we are offering to reduce our carriage fee or even accept a flat fee in exchange for broader distribution.

We still believe there will be a loss in transportation revenue. It would be offset by higher advertising revenue generated by a larger subscriber base, but Comcast has consistently rejected those requests. TAC has been an extraordinarily good partner in supporting all of Comcast's multicultural initiatives, such as sponsoring the Mr. African Festival, which meets in Philadelphia, Comcast's headquarters. as well as other xfinity VOD marketing initiatives aimed at the African American community, but without significant reciprocity, although Comcast has not excluded TAC. Comcast has not been a good business partner with a broken but repeated promise by Comcast of 4 million additional subscribers being accurate. include TAC in any group of independent black-owned networks, which would rate the business relationship with Comcast good to five or in some way proactive during the MOU process.

I met with Chicago Congressman Bobby Rush, it's part of the congressional approval process that we met in DC for him. office and asked me to assure you that Comcast will continue the innovative and significant progress in diversity and inclusion that as executive vice president of NBC News and chief diversity officer had led at NBC, you are a safe congressman. I didn't know if the Comcast people would do it. then and I certainly had no way of predicting this. I said that GE's parent company NBC News was an industry leader on diversity and inclusion and that NBC you were an industry leader on diversity and inclusion that Comcast was promising Congress that it would work for a greater economy. success for the African American community as noted and commitments regarding employment in procurement banking, etc.

I told him that I would meet with him as one of my assigned responsibilities to accomplish what was needed to secure Comcast's government approval to acquire its own NBC you, I mean, was taking Comcast at its word. Pitching these Black entrepreneurs new cable networks without meaningful distribution and real economic inclusion would, in my opinion, result in a business model filled with frustration and near-uselessness as the leader of the NBC you team that worked on and negotiated the MOU. with African American civil rights leaders separately. I had pitched to Comcast that without a guaranteed subscriber count that would give black entrepreneurs significant income and profits, the launch of these channels would not help it achieve success in business, in fact as the owner of the Africa Channel I abstain from any discussion of Comcast's TAC, but I also knew from my experience that without the key components of a guaranteed number of revenue subscribers, running a profitable cable network would be very problematic.

I will share these concerns with Comcast that the African American networks would be set up to fail and Comcast made it clear that it was only committed to launching these networks and not giving them the distribution and financial support necessary to succeed. None of the black networks pursued cable carriage solely with Comcast. We all saw the transport. in the statutes of Time Warner, Cox, etc., however, Comcast was looking to acquire one of the largest content creators in the world, NBC Universal, and for that reason Congress legislated for Comcast to enter the MOU. Comcast was obligated by the deal to lose the cable network, but was not obligated to distribute to a required number of households/subscribers so the channels have never had a good chance of having a profitable and successful business.

The amount of dirty money that cable network owners make from their business relationship with Comcast can only be characterized as very small, in fact, Comcast. covers more than $12 billion in cable network licenses, of which black-owned networks receive a negligible amount because the Africa channel has been included in Comcast's Itay program, suggesting we have a good relationship commercial. I am writing this statement to establish To be clear that I felt compelled to speak out and tell the truth for many reasons, especially after reading the falsehoods spread by Comcast's Brian Roberts and David Cohen as someone who was a corporate insider and helped craft the MoU.

I can honestly say after reading Sean. Does the official statement on Comcast calm down? You have every reason to feel the way you do. In fact, a few weeks ago I considered filing an amicus brief to buy a real claim, but after communicating with my Bachelor College classmate, Sherrilyn Ifill the Legal Defense Fund, I decided against it. To do so, I am convinced that there are several amicus curiae briefs filed with SCOTUS, but I believe it is a positive and compelling argument that his case should be allowed to proceed. I also spoke with the nationalization of journalist, President Dorothy Tucker, expressing my great concern about the Civil Law.

The Human Rights Act of 1866 will be gutted by Comcast and the US Attorney General's Bar, which is why I encouraged a bj, meaning a life member, to speak out and, in fact, in a bj I did it after seeing Comcast's actions regarding the statute. Now I am convinced that I have to speak again, this is the reason why I write this statement. I mean, I think what these people are talking about is just the way this firm wants to use them to really intimidate this other black man and give up his case or at least beat him up in court saying "hey, I got these other blacks, there's nothing to see here" and what they're saying is you haven't even really kept

your

commitments to us so don't use this this way partly because they want to do what Comcast is looking to do is basically say that , unless we've said we want to stop all black people from doing business, then there's no case here, which essentially means there's no law here, there's no protection here because it's not just about discriminatory outcomes it's like you have to prove the intent, which I think is a complete violation of the spirit of the law and I think there are people who see themselves in a powerful position and in fact Comcast encouraged and empowered them by using them. like your kind of markers and in the end, the people who define their diversity initiatives and those people say, wait a minute, Comcast isn't actually done, not only did they promise us, they haven't done what they promised Congress, which in they have actually done. have violated their agreements with us, forwhat Byron Allen is simply the latest manifestation of the ways in which Comcast wants to continue doing business and we are not going to allow ourselves to be used to oppress another black man and hold him back. of his IP but not just back as Robert Rodríguez his net worth the El Rey television network his Comcast launched in 2010 this is what he said on Friday quote while we are grateful for the opportunity that Comcast gave us as the first distributor to launch our networks In service to our communities we want to make it very clear that they had much more to gain financially.

That's when he told the newspaper via cable fax that he agreed with Sean Diddy Combs, but here's the thing, that has to be done here too, the MOU that was signed by those civil rights organizations, you needed business people to negotiate with them, you needed people who understood the industry, to negotiate with them because if someone knew the industry they would have said no, you have a guaranteed distribution, if you just say that you can have a record label it's a But if you don't have access to the places where they're going to play your stuff, it doesn't matter and that's the real problem here and this is not disrespectful to any of our civil rights organizations, but I I would dare say that this is the problem. with that MOU it was weak you can't say hey just cast a net you don't have to say no not just cast a net take them to all your systems and don't put them in them higher levels put them in the lowest level because B et is the only one black network that is at the basic level because they were the first, that's all, and what happens is that I know for a fact that when I was on TV One they will play black. networks on the same level as HBO and Showtime, which means that black people to get the black networks had to pay the highest cable bills to be able to watch us, so even though we were in 55 or 58 million homes, we were available in that same number of homes, but how many could afford it, how many could afford it and, furthermore, how many access it correctly.

We all know that when we sit down and flip through our cable channels, there may be a variety of channels that people traditionally tune into, whatever their normal programming may be. It's probably your local channels and then some extras too, but when you put some of the other channels on channel 1694 and all the other channels are ten to two or less to 90, that changes the way people are going to see things that will change your advertising revenue that will further change all other things Comcast has demonstrated a pattern of being willing to use black networks black media black content creators over and over again to serve whatever goal they have, whether that goal Whether it's the acquisition of a larger property, whether that goal is to diffuse a lawsuit they're fighting against Comcast has proven time and time again that they're willing to raise a profile and put their black friends on Front Street, so to speak. and at no time do they forgive me for going, at no time do they.

They show some significant interest in developing, nurturing and curating Black content, but they want to share their Black framework and I like that Diddy's statement is so eloquent, so well articulated and so knowledgeable about the law on the application of courage on the application of content And how did he say in his rap that his public relations statements are very true? Don't worry if I write PR statements. I write checks. My question is what if all the black media company owners like you, all these moguls, what if we started our own network no, no, but that dog has the same problem that we're having right now, the same problem right now, the problem is not during your own network, that is not the problem, they saw the networks revenue in their distribution, look, you could start a network. so we still have to go through someone like Comcast just once, so unless you're talking about the Time Warner headline deal, DirecTV, yeah, Comcast, which is the largest cable provider in the country, okay, with 21 million homes, you have a contract, okay, they absorbed what they used to. to be Time Warner Cable, then you have DirecTV, this satellite dish, those are satellite providers, and then you have a bunch of other smaller cable operators, that's what you have now, so you have to go to each one of them to get a carrier deal so you can I can sign a deal with Comcast because it's not called mos but yeah multi carrier system so you can say I deal with Comcast but what we had to do is go to each individual market , so what happens is that in the cities there is a cable.

The network has the cable franchise granted by the city government, so in that city the City Council votes, you get the city cable franchise only one. Now it was a lot of drama when Verizon FiOS came in and then when AT&T u-verse came in. because they weren't cable there was fiber optics the cable systems were fighting them saying no they had to go through the same approval process as us that's why in some places you could have access to Verizon FiOS 82 AT&T u-verse, as well as the local cable agreement and then you would have done it and that typical agreement can last between seven and ten years, okay, so essentially they are the exclusive provider for that market, that's it, and so you can, some markets are charter markets, some markets are Comcast markets some of the other cables, some of the cable companies, so we had to go to individuals, so when the Washington Post owned the cable system, it was a cape, it was one in Mississippi, it was a city that was seventy percent black.

Donald Graham was CEO TV's neighbor, so they kept telling us at the corporate level, hey, we don't have a problem, TV One, we go down Mississippi and the local GM turns it on, anyone was asking about a TV One, now that we knew we were lying, It's seven percent black, but that local gem decided whether we would make a deal or not, so we would have to organize events and we would have to generate, you know, interest among the public, but this is the problem if you get caught cheering. people to write, you could be banned from other networks across the country.

I'm trying to tell you: Wow, TV can understand. I know this desire to live it well. TV I love Jonathan Rogers, the founding CEO of TV 1, he is the first CEO of TV. He sent me across the United States to do events in black communities for black people to apply for a television I went to Rochester New York I went to Buffalo New York I went to Fort Worth Texas I went to San Antonio I went to Charleston South Carolina I went to Savannah, Georgia, with the military all over the country putting on these events, this is who we are to interest black people and yes, we have to do all that now.

Comcast could have said it, we'll put you on all of our systems. Keylong cover and a move but you got it but that but that's also so from what I understand you have a riot you don't even care about Philly okay, riot like yeah and that's what you're going through here so this It is very interesting and so I will say this here so that Diddy and Palo Madame, the Africa channel, leave these letters and expose this. If I'm Comcast, I'm like, damn, we're not winning this war and if you look on Twitter, Comcast is getting handed over. in the tweets they show all their multicultural efforts, these letters and what Rodriguez Robert Rodriguez had to say, believe me, he is not going to sit back, it is true that the people who make Afro TV also wrote a letter praising that they work in Malaysia with Comcast, but these other people that Comcast has been promoting that it doesn't indicate and I mean, that's what happens even though you put the name of these people and now people say, "Oh, now we have to respond until the truth of what the relationship is, they wouldn't have done what they did.

It would be super exactly, they haven't done what they promised and what they want to do is use us to harm this other black man and we're not going to be used that way because of the true kind of power right now. It's not about taking Comcast's side and staying silent, it's about this person's side because everyone has a lot to gain here, it's not just about the people, I also don't want to say that the reality is that look, this is a fight between Bart Allen. and Comcast, but what you're also exposing are some of the other more vulnerable aspects of you know what's going on in the ashtray and that's what people understand because your transportation, your transportation, and your subscription fees are what drive your revenue. and so what happens is when you sign a cable, people relax when you sign a cable deal, some of these cable deals are five years, some of their more than seven years, so what happens is that you negotiate a deal with Comcast or rent to anyone and let's say you say it's Comcast and you say okay, 10 million subscribers, okay, get out a calculator, see okay, then you'll pay us 10 cents, 10 cents for every 10 weeks, so it's 10 million subscribers again if it's 10 million times that 10 cents, that means we. make a million every month, that means we'll get from the subscription fees alone 12 million, excuse me, twelve million a year, that means if I sign an agreement, it's a five-year transportation contract.

I can go to the bank and say I'll get sixty. million in the next five years now I need to get I need 200 million for programming to run my network that's what the speed bandwagon battle is about and that's what people use now understanding the complexities of the market and that's why when a person He says with a man, I have learned to be one. I would love for you to revoke but you have a higher level so you know I can't afford that so I will pay for that base level or the correct one. above I never got to see your network because you're forcing me the cable system is putting them on the top tier by design well I'm not calling it going well I was just going to say that rarely in history has anyone been one of the people who they are being sued in a lawsuit and then when they are removed they join an amicus brief supporting the people who were suing them, that's what happened here with N double AC P because Byron Allen was a legend in the n - double-a-cp and the other civil rights organizations by signing the MOU would have, according to you, negligent in their duties to ensure the protection of civil rights and therefore once the n-double- was removed a-cp, now let's look at the double ACP signing the amicus curiae brief, that's what we see Ms.

Madison referring to and lastly, one of the things that Comcast definitely doesn't want to happen is that if this case continues, there will be correct statements and therefore no one in history. of sometime the statements if you get a subpoena, yes, yes, they can dismiss this, that's fine, but all those things that Diddy is talking about, all those things that condemn Madison to Rodríguez, they are saying that his statements, those things become unsworn under oath and all the crime, but that's an offense they could have fixed it in the Ninth Circuit carnate Laos they could have said okay, we're going to move on, we lost, we'll pay you and we'll end this they decided to ch

allen

ge, you can watch, you're just Wait a minute, okay friends, marijuana is at a minimum continue, our friends at marijuana stock dot org have already reached more than half of their funding goal for the Hilton CBD investment.

That's right, if you want to take advantage of the great opportunity, you better do it very quickly because it won't last much longer if you don't know that I'm talking about the hemp plant, the good cousin of marijuana with a much higher concentration of CBD, which which means that hemp gives you all the medical benefits of marijuana without getting you high. Do not know him. Farming is now legal in the United States, creating the world's largest commodities. Now, friends, is an opportunity for you to invest. That's where 420 real estate comes in. The business model is simple.

They purchase land that supports CBD hemp growing operations. and rent it out to high paying licensed tenants, that's there CBD landlords and you can get in on the action as Hill continues to change the economic landscape. 420 Real Estate allows you to pursue the American dream and the best part is that you can invest this crowdfunding. campaign for as little as $200 that's right $200 up to $10k to invest go pot stocks that's an orgy of pot stocks get in the game folks and get in the game now get rolling again .