It looks like I woke up Comcast's PR department this morning with my RightNetwork report.
From The Politico:
UPDATE: Comcast tells POLITICO that Crooks & Liars' headline -- "Comcast partners with teabaggers to bring new right-wing broadcast network online" -- is misleading. Comcast tells me that it has received RightNetwork's pitch (see the .pdf here) but has not made an official decision to partner up with them.
Misleading? The sales material clearly states the intention to launch on television, web and mobile in the summer of 2010. Here's an image as it was in their PDF "lookbook" on the RightNetwork website before it was pulled last night. I've uploaded an archived copy of it to my own website so there can be no mistake about what I read and how I reported it.
Comcast's denial hinges on their assertion that Comcast-Spectacor and Comcast are separate entities with no relationship beyond common ownership. (Comcast owns 63% of Comcast-Spectacor)
Not so fast, Comcast. Let's start with this: The literature clearly states the intent to launch on "television, web and mobile" in the summer of 2010. A look at Comcast-Spectacor's holdings doesn't give any kind of clear-cut pathway to a broadcast/mobile/web pipeline. While Comcast-Spectacor does own Comcast Sportsnet, it's a regional property with affiliates in some, but not all, cities.
The owner of the pipes is Comcast. An "everywhere, anywhere" implementation of RightNetwork cannot happen without a pipeline. Comcast owns several, and hopes to own more. Xfinity is the brand name for Comcast's triple play service: Cable, cable internet, and cable telephone service.
Ed Snider may be the personal touchpoint, but without pipelines, how could he possibly make a claim like this?
Please note the exact language: "partners including COMCAST". Not Comcast-Spectacor. Comcast.
There was nothing inaccurate about my title or my post, but it must have Comcast executives gnawing raw meat today. Mediaite wrote a post that inspired this tweet from Keith Olbermann and a Mediaite correction to their title, following Brian Stelter's post about Comcast's denial:
This bad reporting http://tinyurl.com/y7wknrh is why Comcast issued statement about its non-involvement in Kelsey Grammar's Hatefest
Keith, Mediaite reported the same facts I did, based upon official literature published by RightNetwork, presumably after reading my post. It wasn't bad reporting. It was factual, based upon published and easily-available materials.
I may have caught Comcast's PR department sleeping on the job, but that doesn't make my report inaccurate. It makes it necessary for Comcast to issue a blanket denial, and it makes the RightNetwork sales material presumptuous IF, in fact, it was false.
If RightNetwork's pitch book is false with regard to Comcast, then a deal must be inked somewhere for someone's pipes, or else the authors of the RightNetwork pitch material are simply lying about their triple play content service, which certainly doesn't speak well for their plans to serve content to inspire truth and the American way.
Either way, I stand by my original report on this. I acknowledge Comcast's denial for what it is and will be watching to see whose pipelines are used to serve television, internet and mobile content from RightNetwork.
3:24 pm: Edited to change the link to Olbermann's tweet to his tweet, rather than the Mediaite story.
Related: Who might be funding RightNetwork?
