WASHINGTON — Comcast executive vice president David Cohen was on Capitol Hill two weeks ago to talk up his company’s commitment to diversity, specifically in terms of programming targeted to Hispanics.
According to a Capitol Hill source, Cohen met with Democratic members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to talk about their concern with the deal.
Comcast addressed similar concerns over its acquisition of programming giant NBCUniversal via a number of diversity commitments. At a minimum, its commitment to add 10 new diverse channels as part of that deal will extend to the former TWC systems.
Comcast also said on its deal website that since that NBCU deal in 2011, it has added two independent national Hispanic-owned channels (El Rey and BabyFirst Americas) and has struck a long-term carriage deal with Univision Deportes Network.
Spanish-language programmer Entravision has been making the case in Washington that a Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger would hurt competing Latino-market program providers (like Entravision).
