A recently formed advocacy group has some pretty harsh words for cable giant Comcast Corp. and has hired a former FCC chairman as its counsel.

"For decades Comcast has shut the door to African American ownership of cable channels," said Stanley E. Washington, president and chief executive of the National Coalition of African American Owned Media. He even charged Comcast investors with "supporting apartheid right here in America."

The coalition, which appears to be a relatively new group, says its mission is to "protect and increase African American owned media" and asked the Federal Communications Commission to require that Comcast allocate "a minimum of 25 channels to African-American owned media companies" as a condition to approving its deal to take control of NBC Universal. 

Asked whether Comcast's decision to invest in TV One, a black-owned cable network that debuted in January 2004 and is available in about 50 million homes, throws cold water on his charges against the cable company, Washington said Comcast forced "TV One to give up equity in order to be carried." Washington added that since TV One is a unit of Radio One, a publicly traded company, it is "ultimately not majority owned by African Americans."

Alfred Liggins, the chief executive of Radio One and chairman of TV One, takes issue with that. In an interview, Liggins, who is black, noted that he and his mother -- Cathy Hughes -- control 90% of the voting stock of Radio One. "This is about as black a company as you can be, whether it is public or not."

Liggins, who said he was not familiar with the new media coalition criticizing the deal, dismissed the idea that Comcast forced him to sell a stake in TV One. "Absolutely not ... we went in and offered that," he said, adding that "Comcast saw the void in black programming that wasn't focused on hip-hop culture."

As for whether Comcast should set aside a certain percentage of its channels for minority-owned companies, Liggins is not a fan. "Everybody has to come to the table and pitch their idea and the merits should determine if these services get carried ... black people need more quality TV, not just more channels."

In a statement, Comcast said it "distributes a variety of minority- and/or independently-owned channels." 

Interestingly, providing legal advice to the coalition is former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

A Republican who served as chairman of the regulatory agency under President George W. Bush, Martin is now with the Washington law firm Patton Boggs and counts among his clients several groups and companies opposed to or concerned about the Comcast-NBC Universal deal. Besides the black media owners coalition, Martin is working with Communications Workers of America and Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg TV, which has expressed concerns about Comcast giving CNBC preferential treatment once the NBC deal is closed.

While there is no shortage of groups opposed to or worried about the Comcast-NBC Universal deal, that a former FCC chairman has taken such a strong role with groups opposing the cable company seems noteworthy. Of course, when he was at the FCC Martin was hardly known as a friend to cable as he made many efforts -- most unsuccessful -- to put new regulations on the industry.

Martin did not respond to requests for comment regarding the black media owners coalition's fiery rhetoric about Comcast.

For more on Kevin Martin's work against the Comcast-NBC Universal deal, please see our report in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times.

-- Joe Flint

Photos, from top: Former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin; Radio One CEO Alfred Liggins. Credits, from top: Jae C. Hong  / Associated Press; Radio One.

A consortium composed of some of the nation's biggest broadcasters -- including News Corp.'s Fox, NBC Universal, Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst Television, ION Television and Cox Media Group -- has struck a deal to create a joint venture to develop programming for mobile devices.

The as-yet-unnamed venture has television stations that reach just about every major market in the United States and by its own estimation could offer content to 150 million people. The plan is to use spectrum that is not being used for broadcast and transmit content to mobile phones.

The move comes at time when how broadcasters are or are not using spectrum has become a lightening rod at the Federal Communications Commission and on Capitol Hill. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski recently submitted the agency's broadband plan to improve mobile and Internet service across the nation, and in that plan the FCC advocates that broadcasters voluntarily return spectrum that could be auctioned to telecommunication firms. Broadcasters are reluctant to give back any spectrum because they see it as key to develop new businesses and revenue streams, especially as the local television station business is hurting.

Details of the new effort are sketchy. In an interview, Sandy Schwartz, president of Cox Media Group, said the companies are teaming up because it will be more cost-efficient. "If Cox did it alone it would be a huge expense," he said. As for content, in the early stages it would most likely focus on the staples of local TV -- news, weather and sports.

Many of the companies involved in this consortium also compete against one another for advertising and viewers both locally and nationally, a fact not lost on Schwartz.

"Broadcasters don't get along with each other very well," he said. But given how the competitive landscape has changed, "It's a new day."

The idea of a group of the nation's biggest media companies teaming up to offer content to mobile devices could potentially raise eyebrows in antitrust circles. Although local broadcasters often compete and share resources, just as newspapers do, a venture on a national level could face scrutiny. Also, the motivation of such ventures is usually one of financial survival.

Mark F. Grady, a professor at the UCLA School of Law, said the problem could be if this consortium were to lead to a restriction of content offered, as opposed to if the companies were competing against one another.

Cox's Schwartz said he did not anticipate any antitrust issues. "We have vetted it extremely well," he said, adding that the group has not "had one conversation without lawyers in the room."

-- Joe Flint

In a wide-ranging speech to broadcasters, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski tried to ease fears in the industry about the agency's broadband plan, expressed concern about recent battles over carriage fees between broadcasters and cable operators, and warned of a potential crisis in journalism.

Speaking at the National Assn. of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas, Genachowski said all the talk in the industry that the FCC is going to forcefully take spectrum from broadcasters to sell to telecommunications companies is a "myth." The goal of the FCC's broadband plan, he said, is not to "confiscate broadcasters' spectrum and drive broadcasters out of business."

As part of the FCC's broadband plan, which was presented to Congress last month, the agency has said it would like broadcasters to voluntarily return 120 megahertz of spectrum -- or airwaves -- allocated to TV stations to allow for quicker mobile phones and improved broadband service. Broadcasters do not want to give up their spectrum and say they want to offer their own mobile services, which could provide a much- needed revenue stream to prop up the sagging local TV business. (For more on this debate, please see this article in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times.)

Though Genachowski tried to assuage fears that the FCC would force broadcasters to cough up spectrum, he said the situation could become dire. "We're at serious risk as a country in not moving quickly enough on our technology infrastructure and in other areas to remain the world's leader in innovation." This is not, he added, "theory or idle speculation. It's math and physics."

Spectrum wasn't the only touchy issue Genachowski broached in his speech. He also talked about the recent round of fights between cable operators and broadcasters over fees that in some instances have led to consumers losing access to TV channels. That happened in New York in March when Walt Disney Co. briefly pulled the signal of its WABC off of Cablevision Systems because it did not think the cable operator was paying a fair price to carry the station.

So-called retransmission consent disputes have been a constant in the industry since Congress passed a law almost 20 years ago allowing broadcasters to seek financial compensation from cable operators in return for carrying their signals. As of late the tiffs have grown increasingly ugly.

It is pretty rare to hear a former government official talk openly about playing favorites among industries while making regulatory policy, but that is exactly what Reed Hundt, a chairman of the Federal Communications Commission during the Clinton administration, did in a recent speech.

Speaking at Columbia University a few weeks ago about the growth of broadband and the decline of broadcast as platforms, Hundt said when he was head of the FCC the decision was made to "favor the Internet over broadcast" as the common medium of the country. One of the reasons he cited was because broadcasting "had become a threat to democracy," although after dropping that bomb he declined to elaborate on it.

Hundt's FCC, he said, "actually did a lot of things between 1994 and 1997" to clear the way for broadband to become a successor to broadcast television. Hundt's speech first came to our attention from TV NewsCheck, a television industry website. (If you want to watch the speech for yourself, here's a link to his remarks.)

The big thing Hundt said his FCC did was "to allow the computers to use the telephone network to connect to the Internet ... and to do it for free. In other words we stole the value of the telephone network ... and gave it to society." Hundt called it "state-sanctioned theft" of the telephone network. His FCC also made sure that Internet commerce would not be taxed.

Conversely, Hundt said his FCC delayed the broadcast transition to high definition, which, he acknowledged, was "a little naughty."

Hundt said broadcast had served the country very well, but his FCC decided that the Internet was a "fundamentally richer medium" that was going to provide a "better way for people to have access to information."

Many of Hundt's team are at the FCC today, including Chairman Julius Genachowski, who served as a top advisor for Hundt. Genachowski recently laid out the agency's national broadband plan, which has many broadcasters worried because he wants the industry to return some digital spectrum, and they think that just might be a little naughty too.

-- Joe Flint

Photo: Reed Hundt in 1997 when he was head of FCC. Credit: Brian K. Diggs / Associated Press.

Opponents of Comcast's proposed deal to acquire control of General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal have until May 3 to get their gripes to the Federal Communications Commission or forever hold their peace.

The FCC today announced its schedule to hear what the industry and media watchdogs have to say about the deal. This is all part of the agency's regulatory process to determine whether it will give a thumbs up or thumbs down to the transaction.

Here's how it works. Comments from those opposing the deal are due on May 3. Then Comcast will respond to those comments by June 2. Then the opponents have until June 17 to respond to Comcast's responses. Welcome to Washington.

Besides the usual suspects of anti-merger activists, it will be interesting to see if any rival media companies express concerns or ask about conditions on the deal. Generally speaking, big media tends to leave other big media alone, but every now and then a deal is too huge to ignore, as was the case when Walt Disney Co. made noise about Time Warner's ill-fated merger with America Online.

Of course, not all comments have to be negative. So if you love a deal that will merge the nation's largest cable and broadband operator with a programming giant, send the FCC a note to let them know! If you want to read the full public notice, it can be found here.

-- Joe Flint

On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission will finally present to Congress its much-anticipated National Broadband Plan that it hopes will bring high-speed Internet to the 100 million Americans who can't watch YouTube videos as quickly as the rest of us.

OK, there is a little more to it than that. In a summary of its report, which is making the rounds in D.C. and elsewhere, the FCC says better broadband is "a foundation for economic growth" and even a "better way of life." Furthermore, the agency predicted that improved broadband could lower healthcare costs by "hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming decades."

That's pretty impressive. All I know is that ever since I got broadband, I spend even less time reading books and newspapers and have seen my attention span decline faster than the Redskins' chances of ever appearing in a Super Bowl again. 

The FCC notes in the executive summary of its broadband plan that the private sector has done a good job of laying the groundwork -- indeed, over the last decade, the number of Americans with broadband has gone from 8 million to almost 200 million. But it's up to the government to carry the broadband ball those last 10 yards into the end zone.

In particular, the FCC wants to create a new communications platform for police and firefighters so everyone can reach one another better during crisis situations. If the agency can come up with a system that will also take egos out of the equation when it comes to rivals working together, it'll really be on to something.

The FCC's bold ambitions has many in the media and telecommunications industry nervous, particularly broadcasters. The government, the summary says, only has 50 megahertz of spectrum at its fingertips, and apparently it needs a lot more to carry out its plan of building new networks and fulfilling it dream of a broadband line into every home or telephone or some other device we haven't invented yet that will distract us from doing whatever it is we're supposed to be doing.

As part of its plan, the FCC is looking to broadcasters to give back some spectrum -- approximately 120 megahertz already assigned to local TV stations across the nation -- for new mobile technologies. Broadcasters, who gave back 108 megahertz during the transition from analog to digital television, are not eager to part with any more.

"We were pleased by initial indications from FCC members that any spectrum reallocation would be voluntary, and were therefore prepared to move forward in a constructive fashion on that basis," the National Assn. of Broadcasters said. "However, we are concerned by reports today that suggest many aspects of the plan may in fact not be as voluntary as originally promised." In other words, go take some other industry's spectrum; we have plans for ours.

Cable giant Comcast Corp., which is also the nation's largest broadband provider, is a little more restrained than the broadcasters group. Of course, that may change once Comcast finishes its deal to acquire NBC Universal and becomes a broadcaster itself.

In a blog post on the company's website, Comcast Senior Vice President Joe Waz said the FCC needs to "maintain the light-touch regulatory environment essential to promoting investment." 

Warning to Waz: Putting "light touch" and a government agency in the same sentence might be an oxymoron.

-- Joe Flint

Photo: FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Credit: Joshua Roberts / Bloomberg

In a blow to the cable industry, an appeals court upheld the Federal Communications Commission's so-called program access rules that prohibit cable operators from withholding programming they own from rival distributors such as satellite television services.

Cable giants Comcast Corp. and Cablevision had been fighting with the FCC to get the rules overturned. The rules were established almost two decades ago at a time when much of the programming in the cable industry was owned by distributors. There was worry that cable operators would keep their content to themselves and that rival services such as DirecTV would not get off the ground. Now, only a handful of major cable distributors own content as well.

However one of those operators -- Comcast Corp. -- is in the process of trying to acquire control NBC Universal, which owns several top cable networks including USA and Bravo. Cablevision also owns programming including the cable network AMC, which has the critical hits "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad." Time Warner, parent of HBO, TNT and CNN, used to be one of the biggest vertically integrated companies, but last year it spun-off its cable systems into a stand-alone company.

Since the rules were enacted, satellite services such as DirecTV and DISH have emerged as legitimate competitors to cable. Telephone companies including Verizon and AT&T are also actively competing with cable with their own pay TV services. The cable industry has argued that the rules are no longer necessary. Furthermore, Comcast and others feel there is a double-standard in place. DirecTV, they argue, has an exclusive programming deal with the National Football League to offer every game to consumers.

But the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said while the media landscape has shifted dramatically since 1992, "cable still controls two thirds of the market nationally."

The setback may be short-lived. The FCC has already it said it plans to phase out the program access rules in 2012 and the court seemed to favor such a move. "We expect that if the market continues to evolve at such a rapid pace, the Commission will soon be able to conclude that the exclusivity prohibition is no longer necessary to preserve and protect competition and diversity in the distribution of video programming."

In a statement, Comcast said it was “disappointed that the court has preserved the current unfairness that allows DirecTV to have exclusives for NFL Sunday Ticket and NASCAR Hot Pass while restricting the exclusives that cable operators may have." Comcast said it has no plans to appeal.

Cablevision said the program access rules are "based on an outdated and obsolete view of the competitive landscape" and "tilt the playing field in favor of phone companies ... to the detriment of fair competition and consumers.”

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski applauded the court's decision. "I’m pleased that the D.C. Circuit court has confirmed the Commission’s authority to prevent vertically integrated cable companies from denying critical television programming to their competitors and consumers,” he said in a statement.

-- Joe Flint

Photo: Comcast CEO Brian Roberts. Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press.

First the Federal Communications Commission, now Capitol Hill.

Just hours after revealing plans to ask the FCC to change the rules of negotiation between broadcasters and cable operators, a consortium of distributors led by Time Warner Cable is taking its case to Congress as well.

In a letter sent Tuesday to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, the group said the so-called retransmission consent rules that allow broadcasters to negotiate fees from distributors were "broken" and that consumers were being taken for a ride.

The outreach to lawmakers and regulators by the cable industry comes in the aftermath of a tough fight between Walt Disney Co. and Cablevision. On Sunday, Walt Disney pulled the signal of WABC-TV, its New York station, from Cablevision's 3.1-million homes. The two had been unable to come to an agreement on a price for Cablevision to pay for Walt Disney to carry the station. Viewers almost missed the Oscars because of the feud but a deal was reached and the signal was restored just minutes after the show had started. 

Cable and satellite companies are concerned about losing the signal of local TV stations during contract negotiations. The consortium is expected to ask the FCC to impose new rules that would take away the ability of a broadcaster to threaten to remove a signal as leverage in negotiations.

Going to Congress and the FCC is not without risk. Neither the broadcast or cable industry are fans of government regulations and there is always the risk that the government could try to impose rules that neither side likes. As President Reagan noted, one of the most feared sentences in the English language is "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

The National Assn. of Broadcasters said pay television providers such as Time Warner have no problem paying for cable channels that do not have as big an audience as local TV stations. Furthermore, "modest retransmission consent revenues help local TV stations fund news operations, community service, and life-saving weather information that viewers across America rely on every day," a spokesman for the association said.

-- Joe Flint

RELATED:

Time Warner Cable and others want FCC to make new rules.

Disney and Cablevision can each find reason to smile

A group of distributors led by Time Warner Cable is going to file a petition with the Federal Communications Commission later this week, seeking new rules about how broadcasters and distributors can and cannot negotiate carriage deals.

"As we’ve been saying for some time, the FCC’s regulations governing retransmission consent, which were created nearly 20 years ago, are outdated and being exploited by broadcasters to harm consumers," said a Time Warner Cable spokeswoman.

The move comes in the wake of Walt Disney Co.'s decision to yank the signal of its New York television station, WABC, off Cablevision Systems on Sunday when the two sides were unable to reach a deal. Over 3 million homes in the New York City region lost the signal, which wasn't restored until 15 minutes into Sunday's Oscar telecast, when the two companies reached a deal.

Time Warner Cable and other distributors want the FCC to pass rules that would take away a broadcaster's ability to remove a signal during a carriage dispute. Instead, the distributors want an arbitration system put in place.

"The recurring threats of blackouts, high-stakes public “showdown” negotiations, and recent economic analyses have all confirmed what programming distributors have known for years: the retransmission consent regime is broken," the company said.

Other distributors participating with Time Warner in the request to the FCC include Cablevision Systems, Verizon and satellite broadcasters DirecTV and Dish Network, according to people familiar with the plans.

Not taking part in the filing is Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable operator, which is in the process of trying to acquire control of NBC Universal, which owns lots of broadcast stations and the NBC network. In other words, Comcast has a conflict. Furthermore, with Comcast getting lots of heat about its pending NBC deal from lawmakers concerned about media concentration, the company wants to keep a low profile on this particular squabble.

The American Cable Assn., which represents smaller cable operators around the country, is also on board and wants the FCC to go even further in making some new laws. 

"The suggested remedies in the petition raise some of the ideas the FCC should consider," ACA President Matt Polka said in a statement, adding that as the process moves forward the association would like the regulatory agency to "address also the rampant price discrimination faced by smaller cable operators and their customers and the need for regulations to fix this problem as well."

Time Warner Cable, which went through a bitter negotiation with News Corp.'s Fox Broadcasting late last year, is facing its own battle with Disney over the ABC stations later this year. The FCC filing is seen as the first shot fired across the bow in negotiations.

There is some irony here. Time Warner Cable doesn't want broadcasters to be able to pull their signal during negotiations for a new contract. Yet, 10 years ago, it was Time Warner Cable that dropped the signal of Disney's ABC stations around the country when the two sides were unable to reach a new deal.

-- Joe Flint

If you think Santa Claus gets a lot of mail, that's nothing compared to the Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau, the part of the regulatory agency that handles indecency complaints.

Tim Doyle, a reporter for industry consulting firm SNL Kagan, went to the trouble of filing a Freedom of Information Act to get a little information about just how many complaints the FCC is sifting through and what shows are the biggest offenders.

Before we get to what shows are getting the most complaints, let's look at the backlog of indecency complaints at the FCC. Doyle reports here that at the end of last year the FCC had a walloping 1.45 million pending complaints and 12,049 open cases. 

The program that is keeping the FCC most busy is Fox's animated sitcom "Family Guy." A March 2009 episode alone generated almost 200,000 complaints, according to Doyle's arithmetic. I missed that episode, but Doyle's story on it said the show included a plot line involving horse semen. We don't know if that was the one that got the show an Emmy nomination or not, but either way the folks at "Family Guy" probably don't have a lot of friends in Fox's Washington, D.C., office at the moment.

Usually, if a show generates that many complaints odds are it had some help from an advocacy group that got its membership to take part in a mass mailing. We're not playing connect the dots here, but the first quote in Doyle's story about the high number of complaints involving "Family Guy" is from Dan Isett, a director of the Parents Television Council, a media watchdog group that is no fan of the show.

But a complaint is a complaint in the eyes of the FCC. The high volume around "Family Guy" could become a big headache for the network if the commission were to go after the show. A Fox spokesman said, "We take any inquiry seriously and respond to each in an appropriate and timely fashion." Of course, the above-mentioned episode of "Family Guy" is not the only one that's been noticed by the FCC. There are thousands of other complaints about various episodes of the show piled up at the regulatory agency.

There are some other amusing tidbits amid Doyle's findings, including one that shows the risk of panning the stands of a football game. Fox got almost 150,000 complaints when it showed a fan at a football game wearing a shirt that suggested the Philadelphia Eagles do something to themselves that is probably physically impossible.

And perhaps we can do a little public service here. Folks, the FCC does not regulate content on cable networks, especially premium channels, so stop sending in complaints about HBO's "Big Love."

-- Joe Flint