NCAAOM opposes NBC and Comcast merger

The US based National Coalition of African American Owned Media has criticised President Barack Obama for failing to challenge a pending merger between two major US television powerhouses: NBC and Comcast.

In a full page advert in the Washington Post, the NCAAOM publish an open letter to the President in which they point out that despite Comcast having an $8 billion budget and some 23 million subscribers including a large African American base, no money is specifically allocated to African American owned media houses.

The group argues that the NBC/Comcast merger should not be allowed to proceed without Comcast agreeing to allocate 10 percent of its channel capacity and 10 percent of its programming budget to African American owned networks.

The letter appears to paint President Obama as a leader who has reversed his position on black media ownership. They start by quoting a letter that Obama wrote to the FCC as a senator, in which he stated that, "....the commission has failed to further the goals of diversity in media and... it is in no position to justify allowing for increased consolidation of the market."

The letter goes on to suggest that the Obama Administration has been kept silent by massive lobbying efforts on the part of Comcast to get the merger approved:

"If you continue to follow the path of the Beltway Elite, and turn your back on the African American community, and the critical goals you set for yourself and your administration (jobs, transparency in government, opportunity for all, net neutrality, etc.), it will foster widespread disappointment moving forward."

The move comes just weeks after the cancellation of the US television series Undercover starring Boris Kodjoe and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Undercovers was only the second ever NBC show to have two black lead roles. The first was the Cosby Show.

Co created by JJ Abrams (of Lost and Alias fame) and Josh Reims, the show was picked up by NBC in September, and dropped just a month later after falling ratings.

Reims pointed out that choosing two black leads was not necessarily a deliberate decision. He said: “[We said] Let’s just see every possible incarnation of person [so we won’t end up with] the same people we’ve seen on TV a million times … Boris and Gugu came in, and we sort of knew immediately, these are them. We didn’t go out of our way to say we are hiring two black people to be the leads of our show, but we didn’t ignore it either.”

The NCAAOMs concern about how much investment goes into black owned media appears to be justified, given the disproportionate influence that the media can have on society. According to US scholar Dr Boyce Watkins, “How media access is allocated should be of incredible significance to the black community, given that media shapes our lives, our messages and how we view the world.

Part of the reason that a disproportionate number of black boys want to be rappers or basketball players is due to the fact that the black male images they see and hear in media are saturated with athletes, entertainers, criminals and almost nothing else.

While there are a plethora of white talk radio options, there is almost nothing for black America other than stations owned by the same companies that play Lil Wayne songs over and over again. It's time for a change, and the change must occur at the top.”