Supreme Court To Consider Racial Discrimination Case Against Comcast (reuters.com) 74
The Supreme Court will consider whether a black television producer can pursue racial discrimination claims against Comcast for declining to carry his programming channels on its cable system (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source). The Wall Street Journal reports: The Comcast case stems from the cable operator's decision not to carry Pets.TV, Recipes.TV and other channels from Entertainment Studios Networks Inc. The Los Angeles company is solely owned by Byron Allen, who gained celebrity as co-host of "Real People," a 1980s reality show. Comcast has carried channels owned mostly or substantially by African-Americans, such as Magic Johnson's Aspire and Sean "Diddy" Combs's music channel, Revolt TV, as well as Black Entertainment Television, whose African-American founder, Robert Johnson, sold to Viacom in 2001.
The suit, filed under Reconstruction-era law affording "the same right" to contract "as is enjoyed by white citizens," alleges, however, that Comcast discriminated against "100% African American" owned media such as Entertainment Studios. A federal appeals court in San Francisco allowed the suit to proceed. "If discriminatory intent plays any role in a defendant's decision not to contract with a plaintiff, even if it is merely one factor and not the sole cause of the decision, then that plaintiff has not enjoyed the same right as a white citizen," Judge Milan Smith wrote for the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Comcast denies the allegations and says it was concerned the Entertainment Studios programming wouldn't draw enough of an audience to justify allotting it bandwidth. The cable operator argues that federal law requires the plaintiff to show that he or she would have gotten the contract absent racial bias.
The suit, filed under Reconstruction-era law affording "the same right" to contract "as is enjoyed by white citizens," alleges, however, that Comcast discriminated against "100% African American" owned media such as Entertainment Studios. A federal appeals court in San Francisco allowed the suit to proceed. "If discriminatory intent plays any role in a defendant's decision not to contract with a plaintiff, even if it is merely one factor and not the sole cause of the decision, then that plaintiff has not enjoyed the same right as a white citizen," Judge Milan Smith wrote for the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Comcast denies the allegations and says it was concerned the Entertainment Studios programming wouldn't draw enough of an audience to justify allotting it bandwidth. The cable operator argues that federal law requires the plaintiff to show that he or she would have gotten the contract absent racial bias.
Please wait a moment before posting (Score:5, Funny)
My popcorn isn't ready yet.
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My popcorn isn't ready yet.
I just put my bag of microwave popcorn in front of my laptop screen.
All the flames here will have it cooked in a couple of minutes
race-baiting, entitled idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm more concerned with an education system that produces someone who thinks cable tv is relevant.
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All channel owners and company owners care about in the media world is money and money doesn't have a skin color.
It would not be surprising at all if a Wall Street banker, or expensive CEO of a big crappy company, happens to be racist.
Re: race-baiting, entitled idiot (Score:3)
"It's the numbers, stupid!"
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Re: race-baiting, entitled idiot (Score:2)
Re: race-baiting, entitled idiot (Score:5)
If cable companies needed to choose the best shows or be out of business, then every single cable company would be out of business.
You're confused about the correct definition of "best" in this context.
"Best" is not "most critically acclaimed". It is also not "highest production values." It is also not "well acted" nor "well written". It is also not "highest production costs".
"Best" in this context is "keeps people watching the advertising." That's all. It does have a negative correlation with "production costs" since higher costs reduce the profits from advertising.
If Comcast thought that they could recoup the costs of transmission of any video network, and greater than any channel they have to replace to carry it, they would. Period.
I was involved in a cable decision to carry The Family Channel way back when it was Pat Robertson's prime medium. You know, "The 700 Club". The regulators were almost unanimously against allowing the channel to be added. The cable company really wanted it. They knew it would make money. In fact, they knew they would get money both from the local advertising they could add ("local avails") but from the payment from TFC to carry the channel in the first place. Money won over every other concern.
Re: race-baiting, entitled idiot (Score:2)
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Re: race-baiting, entitled idiot (Score:2)
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"The Regulators" thought that an official approval of a religious channel would amount to a violation of the separation of church and state.
Wow. Whereas now it's thought that having a Christmas song at a Christmas concert is too much 'endorsing a state faith'. Hard to say where the mid point was on that pendulum but there's no question that it went way past the middle and went too far the other way.
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In this case the lawsuit claims that the old, rich white guy in question called the plaintiff "boy" and did various other things to suggest racial bias.
Also if you hadn't noticed their success as a cable company comes mostly from being a natural monopoly or driving out the competition, not by being good.
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Well, I would it even hesitate to call those cotton farm slave owners racist.... and that didn't keep them from making money from the work of the (black) slaves.
It's amazing how fast people are able to shelf their prejudices if it's about making money from someone else.
Re: race-baiting, entitled idiot (Score:2)
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Fox got rid of Fox News Latino in 2016. I wonder what happened in 2016 which might have caused them to do that...
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This lawsuit has got to the Supreme Court. It's been through multiple other courts who examined its merits and allowed it to proceed, despite multiple attempts to have it dismissed.
Do you really think it's completely manufactured nonsense and somehow the guy's lawyers have convinced all these courts, all these judges who are mostly old white guys, that there is an actual case to be made here? Or is it more likely that the case has enough merit to be heard by the Supreme Court, which tends to be quite picky
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Do you really think it's completely manufactured nonsense and somehow the guy's lawyers have convinced all these courts, all these judges who are mostly old white guys, that there is an actual case to be made here?
The justices will review a decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court
9th Circuit? Yes. Yes, I do.
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The 9th circuit court has had 75.5% of its cases overturned since 2007. That is higher than the average circuit, but not the highest. The 6th circuit was overturned 88.1%. The 1st, 43.5%
https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot... [ballotpedia.org]
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The 9th circuit court has had 75.5% of its cases overturned since 2007. That is higher than the average circuit, but not the highest. The 6th circuit was overturned 88.1%. The 1st, 43.5%
https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot... [ballotpedia.org]
So are you basically saying that I could do a better job by flipping a coin but because someone else does worse, we should ignore any complaints against them? I think it is common knowledge that the 9th circuit errs on the side of socially progressive advancement regardless of the letter of the law. That has been the complaint for some time from the right and this appears to be one of those cases.
Those channels are junk (Score:5, Informative)
I watched those channels for about five minutes before deleting them from my guide. They just endlessly loop things that look like YouTube videos. This is not about race, the channels are useless. I'd be pissed at Comcast if they added them to my bill.
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Point to the spot on the doll where Trump touched you.
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That old chestnut. (Score:2, Interesting)
Whether on not there's racisim, no one would ever admint, the reasons given so far are quite valid "Comcast and Charter have said their business decisions were based on capacity constraints, not race, and that Allen’s channels, including JusticeCentral.TV, Cars.TV, Pets.TV and Comedy.TV, did not show sufficient promise or customer demand to merit distribution."
Ah yes,the old "Person Of Colour does not get their way, so it must be racism!" argument. It never gets old. Oh, wait...
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Wrong.
The 10th has more cases overturned as a percentage of total cases. The reason it seems the 9th has more cases overturned is because it handles more cases than any other circuit. In fact, California accounts for the majority of cases in the 9th. Even if the 9th were split, the cases from California would still make its circuit the largest in case load. Less than 1% of the cases heard by the 9th are accepted by SCOTUS and about 60% are reversed which is less than the median reversal rate of all circuits
Maybe he sucks? (Score:2)
Co-host a show that airs on 200+ radio stations (Score:3, Interesting)
I co-host a major syndicated radio show that airs on 200+ radio stations and while I'm not black the show is minority run and has a VERY libertarian slant. In fact it is the biggest libertarian radio show on the planet. It's marketed that way at that. A bunch of the co-hosts are LGBQT (maybe 4/9) and every co-host is a libertarian. The radio stations the shows air on are pretty much all "conservative" or "liberal" talk stations. There isn't a "libertarian" station out there. If a libertarian show which is a minority by definition (we're talking about maybe 3% of the population here) can get its content aired on over 200 conservative and liberal radio stations I have a hard time believing this is an issue of Comcast discriminating based on race. Particularly given that they have other black or majority-black owned channels. If you said you were into dog sex or a pedophile or something then maybe I'd believe that you were actually discriminated against. But the majority of minorities with political clout (ie of any real size) today don't see the kinda of bigotry and racism that once existed. As a gay man I will say I've encountered it maybe once in my life as an adult. I may not be flamboyant, but I've been out and open about my sexuality for 8-10ish years now. I will say there are still nut jobs down south, but it's not anywhere near as bad as it once was. Even 10 years ago it was much worse. I am also speaking from the perspective that my partner's mother disowned him (she was born and lives in the heart of the bible belt).
It is a devious line of attack though (Score:2)
If 'black' channels are inherently less profitable, does it still make it racial discrimination if a network doesn't pick it up. Blacks make up only 18% of the population and less than 7% of the economy and the market is already saturated with targeted channels (BET, Oprah, CNN, ...)
The question inherently is since these laws haven't had their desired outcomes (equality), does it require government intervention to demand (absolute) equality of outcome (the left/Democratic interpretation) or is equality of o
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The "Oprah" channel would be a reference to the Oprah Winfrey Network [wikipedia.org], which debuted in 2011. It's usually abbreviated "OWN" or just "O", but for an audience unfamiliar with those terms it makes sense to call it "Oprah".
dom
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Oprah has a lineup of channels both streaming and on-demand which depending on where you live have different names.
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If 'black' channels are inherently less profitable, does it still make it racial discrimination if a network doesn't pick it up.
"Pet TV" doesn't sound like a 'black' channel to me. Maybe it's racist against kittens?
It's reverse racism in their hardware! (Score:1)
Most cable boxes are black, all the coax cable is black. I rarely ever see Comcast giving white cables a chance, even though most people have white/light color walls and carpets were black cables are more noticeable.
Real People was not a reality show (Score:2)
I don't know what it should be called, but it was not what I think of as a "reality show". There were no contestants competing from week-to-week. They didn't even vote on anything, IIRC. Each show was a bunch of short segments about odd people from various parts of the country.
If I had to call it anything, I'd call it a "human interest segment compilation show".
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I do regard "reality" TV as a subclass of game-show. Game shows that are not "reality" don't carry most contestants through week-to-week. That's a distinguishing feature of "reality TV". Only one contestant leaves per week, whereas in a traditional game show you might have only one survivor of each game, if that. Also, most game shows air daily in a studio. The "reality" shows are shot on location, or in a setting that tends to be more elaborate than just seats, buzzers and screens.
I think Survivor def