Comcast promises $20 million for venture capital fund for minority entrepreneurs

Comcast Corp. said it will contribute at least $20 million to a venture capital fund that the cable giant is creating to back minority entrepreneurs in developing new media content and technology.

The move is part of Comcast's effort to ease concerns from minority groups about its proposed deal to take control of General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal. A marriage of the biggest cable and broadband provider with a huge content company has some fearing that there will be a loss of diversity in both in the programming people see and the executives behind the scenes.

In a letter to Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), Comcast also said it would add to its systems four cable networks whose majority owners are African American. 

Comcast timed the release of its letter to Rush to a hearing that the House Energy and Commerce Committee held in Chicago on Thursday morning about the merger. Although she is not a member of that committee, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), one of the deal's harshest critics, was in attendance and criticized NBC for a lack of diversity on its news programming, one attendee said.

The commitment to start a venture capital fund comes a week after Comcast extended several olive branches to the Latino community. Among other things, Comcast said it would add a Latino to its board of directors within two years of the close of its deal with NBC Universal.

While Comcast is making many promises, wooing a lot of politicians and committing a lot of money to get this deal through Washington, there is still a lot of opposition. Several companies and groups including business news giant Bloomberg, which fears that NBC's CNBC will get a leg up if it is owned by Comcast, Writers Guild West and East and Free Press are teaming up to form the Coalition for Competition in Media.

The deal, which is being reviewed by both the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department, is unlikely to close until late this year at the earliest.

-- Joe Flint

Photo: Comcast CEO Brian Roberts. Credit: Matt Rourke / Associated Press

Comments

[Shayne R]

Can you say, "Rounding error"?

[Scott123]

My experience with Comcast went like this:
First I was hired for the wrong job.
Then I was harassed every day.
Then my back went out,
Then I was denied benefits,
Then I was fired (I could not perform the job for which I was hired).
I would sue them if I had the money, but I don't.
Since I am better than them I won't take a gun to them, I will just hope and pray that Roberts and his ilk get rectal cancer and die painful deaths.

[Dr.Deano]

"...part of Comcast's effort to ease concerns from minority groups about its proposed deal to take control of .. NBC Universal. A marriage of the biggest cable and broadband provider with a huge content company has some fearing that there will be a loss of diversity in both in the programming people see and the executives behind the scenes."

Who are the "some" that are "fearing" a "loss of diversity" with this acquisition? What, specifically, are their claims and what concrete justification do they have for making them?

We all know there is no basis for the "fears" and that's because none are needed for these kind of shakedowns.

When a company is publicly at a critical moment in a big business deal of some sort, activists start coming out of the woodwork expressing 'fears' and gnashing their teeth over the potential loss of diversity.. yada, yada, yada, you know the tune.

Then like clockwork, the afflicted company then begins the standard grovel assuring everyone that they bow the requisite number of times per day to the gods of diversity and then the next thing they do is throw money into non-diverse slush funds that will benefit only those of certain politically-correct races.

So Comcast is putting $20M into a fund that will not be available to politically-incorrect races and they will appoint a "Latino" or two to their board because gosh darn it, all of a sudden they realize that purely coincidentally of course, they are two Latinos short of full load...

Let's call this kind of despicable kabuki what it is: Extortion.

[sandi]

The LA times and other news outlets reported this information, but gave absolutely no guidance for minority entrepreneurs on where to apply for or find more information about this venture capital fund. This makes me think, do they really care if this information helps minority entrepreneurs, or just again blowing smoke up our behinds?