Legislation that would extend Comcast’s franchise deal with the city is on ‘pause’ after the Board of Supervisors moved to postpone the vote by a week. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, whose Rules Committee had sent the proposals to the Board without recommendation, made the motion to stay the vote due to the absence of Supervisor Tom Ammiano.
The legislation contains two components: a $3.5 million settlement to be paid by Comcast for failing to upgrade the city’s cable system by its September 2003 deadline; and a 4-year franchise extension that would largely resemble the deal signed by Comcast’s predecessors 40 years ago.
Those who support the deal compliment Comcast’s employee satisfaction, and the company’s involvement with community-based organizations.
Opposers claim that Comcast forbids unionization and that the company’s charity is a ploy to avoid contractual concessions in media access for low-income, elderly and other marginalized populations.
Tomas Lee, an aide to Supervisor Ammiano, says the Supervisor believes that the deal must, at minimum, be “tweaked or improved upon.”
For instance, Lee says, Comcast could improve the amount of government-related programming. Currently, he says, having only one channel for public affairs causes conflicts–it cannot broadcast all hearings, for instance, at once. Of 400 channels, “Comcast could at least increase it to three or four.”
Lee also criticizes the “lack of public input” that he says has permitted the Comcast deal to overlook the City’s underprivileged populations. For example, PEG programming–Public, Educational, and Government programming as shown on public-access television–currently offers “only a smattering of programs that enhance multilingual competency,” he says.
Supervisor Ammiano is particularly displeased with the failure to provide for young people, Lee says. The city’s youth deserve better access to television so that they can “experiment with this art form” and counteract the dominant messages of commercial media, Lee says: that they are materialistic and immature. The Comcast deal has the ability to empower youth by enabling them to “go out and do their own thing” using PEG channels.
“Information is access, information is power,” Lee says. Supervisor Ammiano and the rest of the Board will soon consider whether to leverage the deal “given the amount of resources that Comcast can command, nationally and internationally.”
