Comcast shareholders meeting includes unhappy tea party folks ('Protesting' Comcast's MSNBC)

[onehandle]

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

About a dozen tea party activists from the Philadelphia area gathered outside the Kimmel Center on Wednesday - site of Comcast Corp.'s annual shareholders' meeting - to protest the company's ownership of the liberal-leaning MSNBC 24-hour cable news channel.

Inside the meeting, shareholders peppered Comcast chief executive officer Brian Roberts about the company's decision to ban local gun-shop advertisements. There were also complaints about the Rev. Al Sharpton, host of PoliticsNation on MSNBC.

Tom Borelli, senior fellow with the tea party group FreedomWorks, said Comcast risked losing conservative cable subscribers because of MSNBC, a unit of NBCUniversal. "Conservatives can abandon your business," Borelli said.

Roberts, chairman of the 50-year-old company with more than $60 billion in annual revenue, said that Comcast outperformed other cable companies in the first quarter and that the cable industry supports a "diversity of voices."

Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20130516_Comcast_shareholders_meeting_includes_unhappy_Tea_Party_folks.html

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Now why would Tearacists single out Rev. Al?

Hmm...

Oh, and FreedomWorks?

Just another astroturf faux protest.

[madrchsod]

1. like msnbc will kill it`s cash cows

msnbc is close to and during some air times a solid second behind fucked news.

[kelliekat44]

35. Tell them to sell their stock if they don't like it. This stuff works both ways. nt

[itsrobert]

37. Not since they put Chris Hayes in Ed's slot.

n/t

[kimsterdemster]

38. do not get me wrong...

i do like chris but no in this time slot, miss ed soooooo much, martin is my new fav

martin
rev al
chris
lawrence
rachel
chris

[monmouth3]

2. Read this yesterday on The Hollywood Reporter. Am glad the Comcast guy stood up for MSNBC..n/t

[Atman]

3. They can choose a new cable company?

How does that work? I've never heard of a town in which the cable company didn't hold a monopoly...they contract with the town to provide service. I suppose the could try AT&T Uverse or Dish. Good luck with that!

[MADem]

25. Where I live you can get delivery of tv by cable (old school), fiber optic cable, and dish/satellite

from either Direct TV or Dish Network (with tha HOPPAH!!!!!!! I don't have a dish, but I find their tv commercials HILARIOUS...).

[HERVEPA]

26. Plenty of towns. In Phila, where this occurred, one could choose Verizon.

[Atman]

27. Dish doesn't count. If a bird farts, you lose your signal.

And they don't provide internet access. Uverse is just cable on your telephone line. Poor quality, worse internet.

Hervepa, you say that in Philadelphia you can "choose Verizon." For what? Choose Verizon over Comcast for cable TV? I've never heard of that. I'm not saying you're wrong, I've just never heard of municipality offering a choice...they all tend to contract with one provider. You either use the town's cable provider, or you choose Dish or Uverse. Of course, I could be wrong.

[HERVEPA]

30. Well, I live here, and just switched from Comcast to Verizon

Can choose in NYC also. I'm guessing that's true in ost big cities.

[Atman]

31. I suppose it is true in big cities.

I've never heard of "competition" in small cities or towns. In a city like NY, there are so many customers and so many boroughs and neighborhoods, I can see that it might be feasible. But most towns put it up for bid, and one provider is awarded the contract. That's pretty standard.

[HERVEPA]

33. That makes sense I guess.

The down side is that if you are constantly inundated with commercials and junk mail from the two companies.
The plus side is that if they raise the rate and you threaten to change, you can usually get them to lower it.
That worked for me a number of times with Comcast, then they got outrageous and would only lower it a little, so I switched.

[aquart]

34. But both had MSNBC, right?

[HERVEPA]

36. Yup

[rurallib]

4. MSNBC still carries Morning Joe and Mrs. Greenspan

I wold not say they are real leftists.

[Mike Daniels]

5. To the reality challenged Tea-Party types Joe Scarborough is a RINO

almost exclusively because of his occasional criticism about Iran/Iraq and his recent gun-safety focus. That's good enough to make Joe a "liberal" in Tea-Party land.

[EV_Ares]

6. I assume since the Tea Party is not a political group but a Social Welfare Org as isn't that how

they filed with the IRS, they are only trying to educate Comcast & the American people about MSNBC, right.

[mehrrh]

10. comcast

Sure -- the TP is just a benign and non-political organization looking out for the welfare of TV viewers.
The fact that Fox Noise is ubiquitous across the nation - carried by all cable channels, including MSNBC - it is not a conservative, TP-supporting, opinionated, misleading, disinforming propaganda channel masquerading as news.

[Supply Side Jesus]

7. not a whole dozen?!

oh noes!

[hobbit709]

8. To the teabaggers anyone to the left of Temujin is a liberal.

[kyeshinka]

9. Abandon your business!

These are conservatives who are judgmental over news coverage? Let 'em bluff but I'm pretty confident you won't lose too many. They'll scan the channels back and forth until they settle on Lockup. It's not like these people have a Pilates class or a Tolstoy book club.

[Orrex]

11. Boo hoo hoo

We've had to deal with dozens of bullshit WGOD religious channels for decades, but they're upset about MSNBC?

Too bad, assholes!

[southernyankeebelle]

15. Funny how they fear MSNBC. Especially Sharpton who has managed to go mainstream

with all people and makes many good points.

[City Lights]

12. So the baggers are against free speech, eh?

So much for being the defenders of freedom and liberty.

How very fascist of you, baggers!

[rdking647]

13. i wonder what the baggers would do

if comcast said were going to get rid of MSNBC but to be fair we are dropping faux news from all our cable systems

[Ian David]

14. The proper response would be, "It's geared toward an audience with a higher level of education...

... so we don't expect you to understand it."

[sinkingfeeling]

16. Does Comcast allow one to pick only the channels they want? If not, then

the Teabaggers are either subscribers or they're not.

[csziggy]

17. Why don't the Tea Baggers just block MSNBC from their channels?

That's what I do with Faux Noise - I use the parental controls to block it so no one visiting my house can turn to that crap.

If they don't want to watch MSNBC, they can do the same. They don't need to prevent the rest of us from watching it.

[siligut]

23. That's just it, they don't want anybody to watch it

It makes us libruls uppity and keeps people out of lockstep.

[wandy]

18. Now, Now these good Teapublicans are just trying to to protect you're constitutional freedumb. nt

[Iliyah]

19. FREEDUMB!

What happen to the first amendment? Yeah right, it only pertains to the RWers.

[Wait Wut]

20. "About a dozen tea party activists..."

I can't help but be envious of their ability to organize.

For those dozen teapers, they had 12 porta potties and 25 lawn chairs set up.

[onehandle]

22. It got them into the newspaper.

A horrible, horrible newspaper, but regardless...

[Blue_Tires]

29. Not only that, but

it got them the lede, the top quote, and nary a difficult question was asked...That reporter must be an intern or something...

[broadcaster75201]

21. A dozen?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

[Dawson Leery]

24. There goes the "free market" they worship.

Since they are targeting Sharpton, this is clearly a case of racism (which is at the core of the tea party movement).

[truthisfreedom]

28. The truth hurts teabaggers so bad!

They dish it out but they sure can't take it!

[Downtown Hound]

32. Love how the Teahadists are complaining about the media

all the while whilst their whopping huge protest of about a dozen folks gets a whole article about them and their issue. I've attended MUCH larger protests than that that were ignored by this liberal media they hate so much.