COMCAST'S

Comcast's porn revenue of public interest
Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 7/4/2010 4:25:00 AMSeveral Christian groups are asking that Comcast's pornography business be taken into consideration in a proposed merger with NBC.

Dan Isett, director of public policy at the Parents Television Council (PTC), argues that since the airwaves are public, broadcasters have to go through a character check when they apply for a license.

"So the question on the table is whether or not Comcast, as one of the largest distributors of pornography in the country, fits that definition in order to pass the character definition to get a broadcast license from the [Federal Communications Commission]," Isett points out.

Broadcasters are licensed to serve the public, so that raises the question of how Comcast can do that when it is deeply imbedded in the pornography business.

"Comcast doesn't make publicly available the amount of money that it generates from the distribution of pornographic and other adult-related materials, so one of the things we've asked the FCC to require before this merger goes through is for Comcast to disclose that so we'll have some sort of idea just how dependent they are on that revenue stream in order to make their business work," the PTC public policy director explains.

According to the PTC spokesman, the other question is whether Comcast would use NBC -- which owns stations in the nation's top markets and has affiliate stations in many cities throughout the country -- as a vehicle to distribute pornography.