Liberman Broadcasting Filing Carriage Complaint Against Comcast

Liberman Broadcasting, parent of Spanish-language network Estrella TV, is filing a program-carriage complaint against Comcast at the Federal Communications Commission, saying the cable operator violated not only the commission's rules but NBCU merger conditions--Comcast can't discriminate in favor of its own content.

Liberman says Comcast is discriminating against Estrella TV to favor its own Telemundo and NBC Universo networks and "unlawfully" demanding that Estrella give up digital rights. "We hope the FCC will move swiftly to put a stop to Comcast’s egregious behavior not only for the good of our network, but also to send a message to all independent programmers that they need not endure unlawful abuse at the hands of Comcast," Liberman president Lenard Liberman said. Estrella pointed to the failure to come to a retransmission deal with Comcast for three TV stations, in Denver (CO), Houston (TX) and Salt Lake City (UT), and the “collapse” of ratings following those stations going off Comcast systems.