Comcast Hates Children
Not that that surprises anyone but it is an attention grabbing headline; which is likely why the Philly City paper used it and why I am paraphrasing it.
Anyway, this article sheds some light on things I have wondered about.
http://www.citypaper.net/blogs/clog/2007/04/05/comcast-hates-children-and-america/
Comcast is moving their PBS Sprout station to Canada. Their official reason is difficulty getting visas for Canadian talent…which indicates there isn’t enough American talent for them here in Philadelphia. But what caught my attention is the background on a story that bothered me last year.
Sprout is a Digital offering over the Comcast (and Verizon) networks that shows PBS produced/aired children’s shows 24/7. In between the 12-20 minute shows there is a live action segment where a host(ess) talks to the viewers and sings songs, plays games, etc. It is very cute for the 3-and-under crowd. It is a very safe place to go on TV for kids because there aren’t horrible Bratz doll commercials (like on Noggin). Anyway, sometime last year PBS Sprout (which I now understand is actually produced by Comcast) fired Melanie Martinez who was the ‘goodnight’ host. It appears that she was an actress in a series of abstinence-only parodies about 10 years ago. They showed her talking about vibrators and anal sex as options to vaginal sex. She appeared to be much younger than she actually was (looked like a teenager) and they really played it up to match the public service ads that would promote abstinence. it would have been really funny on SNL.
Check it out here. It is NFSW if you don’t have headphones. Otherwise there is nothing objectionable on the screen.
Anyway, at the time I thought and it seemed that it was a moral clause issue. It seemed silly since I doubt that any 1-5 year olds are going to happen upon those fake-PSAs. And it appears it was silly. She was asking for a raise (likely because she was well liked by the viewers) and Comcast looked for a way to fire her.
We still watch Sprout/PBS and we still use Comcast for our cable service. At least we’ll be able to get rid of Comcast service in August and move to the other monopoly, Verizon. Competition among monopolies has to be better than what we had before. But I think this sheds more light on how Comcast is letting down Philadelphia. How long before it moves all operations out of the city and surrounding suburbs?
October 2, 2009 at 10:46 pm
[...] blatantly lifted from a friend; overall text is a case of [...]