Byron Allen, head of the National Association of African-American Owned Media (NAAAOM), contests recent news reports that the merger between Charter Communications and Time Warner is "imminent." Preferring to describe them as ongoing. He also charges that Charter's reneging on certain agreements that were a condition of the merger borders on discriminatory. His Entertainment Studios (ES) has filed a lawsuit against Charter accordingly.
According to the Multi Channel, Allen asserts that news agencies are in error for reporting that the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) approval for the Charter-Time-Warner merger is just around the corner. Along with the organizations, NAAOMI and ES, which he heads, the executive alleges that their sources have informed them that investigations are still ongoing. FCC can still give stringent conditions that either or both of the parties involved in the merger can refuse or walk away from.
The Street Insider supports this with its own report saying that the absence of any draft from FCC Commissioner Tom Wheeler to any of his colleagues, advising them of the merger, is an indication that the matter is far from being a done deal. An FCC source has also said that the approval lies in part on Charter's compliance with agreements that a substantial part of its programming budget should be allocated to 100 percent ownership by African-Americans.
In a related report, Variety says that NAAOMI called the FCC's attention to Charter's obligation to launch eight channels that will be headed by African-Americans eight years within the merger. ES has launched a lawsuit asking for $10 billion in damages for Charter's alleged failure.
Charter has denied the charges of non-compliance and discrimination, calling ES' statements potentially dangerous because of their "inflammatory, inaccurate, and unsupported" nature.
Louis Miller, ES' counsel, has asked for transparency, challenging Charter to reveal their contracts with both white-owned networks and African-American networks. Charter's respective treatments of both groups will prove if the discriminatory allegations are true or not.
