EXCLUSIVE
When Comcast was angling to take over NBCU, the cable giant promised prominently to increase the profile of minorities at the company and launch eight independent cable networks, including four under African-American control.
But a Who’s Who of African American media figures and civil rights leaders are frustrated that Comcast doesn't seem to be moving fast enough, if at all.
That includes a recent disastrous meeting between Comcast executives and Oprah Winfrey, in which Comcast executives rebuffed the media queen's request for support for her OWN network.
Leading entrepreneur Russell Simmons was rebuffed when he approached NBCU CEO Steve Burke about acquiring the Style network.
The National Urban League, NAACP and Al Sharpton's National Action Network, major civil rights groups, see several trouble spots with their efforts to work with Comcast, TheWrap has learned.
NBCU, for example, has yet to fill the post of chief diversity officer. It has been vacant since Paula Madison, executive vice president, retired in May.
Additionally, according to two persons briefed on the matter, the civil rights groups were taken aback by a realignment of cable-programming management in July that diluted the power of Salaam Coleman Smith, an African-American woman who is president of NBCU-owned Style Network. As a result of the change, Coleman no longer reports directly to Lauren Zalaznick, chairman of NBCU Entertainment & Digital Networks and Integrated Media.
Generally, Comcast and NBCU seem clueless of the sprawling cloud over their efforts, projecting instead a sense of progress.
"Hopefully you will see statistics going in our favor as time goes on," NBC Entertainment Chairman President Robert Greenblatt said at the Television Critics Assn. on Monday morning, referring to the company's efforts to increase diversity in casting and executive ranks.
While NBCU declined official comment on the vacant diversity post, a person close to the company told TheWrap, “a successor to Paula Madison will be named very shortly.”
At times, the atmosphere has been charged behind the scenes.
According to media executives privy to the meeting, Winfrey, accompanied by a consultant, cable veteran Tom Freston, and former Oprah Winfrey Network president Christina Norman, was seeking unspecified Comcast support for her fledgling OWN, which launched in January.
Comcast executives are said to have rebuffed Winfrey, suggesting at one point that they had been turned off by the enormous syndication fees that she reaped during her 25-year reign as queen of daytime talk on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
After relaying TheWrap’s account to Winfrey, a top OWN spokeswoman declined to comment. Comcast’s chief spokesperson said she had no personal knowledge of the meeting, adding, "I will ask around … "
But it's not just Winfrey.
In December, with the mega-deal still under regulatory scrutiny, the National Urban League, NAACP and Al Sharpton's National Action Network and Comcast jointly filed to the Federal Communications Commission a “memorandum
