Montreal     Fortune, the business magazine, ran a prominent article in their June 1st edition on Comcast with the title, “How to Lose Friends and Influence,” essentially detailing how their bully-boy ways, indifference  to customers and community, and just plain arrogance had been key factors in subverting their monopoly efforts to merge with Times-Warner Cable.  Having railed and organized for years to get Comcast to put life, rather than a lie, into their so-called “internet essentials” program required by FCC order in their Universal merger, rather than pretty much a play-pretend public relations program claiming much and doing little, I lapped the piece up based not on a bias about the company, but hard rock experience from David Cohen, their executive vice-president on down to waste of time meetings we had with company reps in Houston, Shreveport, and Little Rock.

Turns out our misery has plenty of company.  Fortune interviewed dozens of “industry insiders” and read the regulatory filings, and found  that the “Philadelphia company, indeed, might offer a rare lesson in whether having a reputation for good corporate community-ship actually matters in today’s hypercompetitive world.”  Besides regularly flipping off all of its community, as we can attest, the evidence is amazing how much it holds its own, often captive, consumers in total disdain.  Comcast managed somehow to “win” the “Worst Company in America” dishonor in both 2010 and 2014 from a Consumer Reports blog.  Fortune also reported that the American Consumer Satisfaction Index ranked their Xfinity Internet service 234th of 236 companies.

Of course Comcast is now claiming that they are “moving on.”  They also claim they are training and hiring more customer service folks by the thousand.  We take little comfort in that since it was their training of their customer service folks to up-sell the supposed low income benefit “internet essentials” program that helped us win the FCC’s fine for their bad behavior.   Out of their billions in profit they are also reportedly allocating $300 million to improving customer service, but once again that seems to all be about how the techs and field service folks speed up and sweet up their jobs.  Given their history, I would worry that their culture has to change at the top, where the tone is set, not the bottom.  It’s not the tail wagging this dog.

There’s a test in Philadelphia right now during the hearings that the City of Philadelphia has set for Comcast’s franchise renewal.  The renewal is specifically about their access to the streets and cable, less than the internet, but it still goes right to Comcast’s “corporate community-ship,” as Fortune calls it.

A Philly-based coalition called mediamobilizing.org called them out early on this saying:

 

Amidst skyrocketing profits, Comcast fights Philadelphians’ basic needs– leading and paying the largest amount in lobbying costs to oppose a campaign to guarantee earned sick days for Philadelphians, and paying little in taxes to the city that gives it so much- a rate of 3.4%, when the average in Pennsylvania is 9.99%.

 

So, clearly Comcast is not going to be able to go through the public hearings deaf to the complaints and pretending it is all about streets and cable TV.  In fact,  there is a demand for Comcast to support public access television on cable and slide over 5% of their profits to the Philadelphia general fund.  I bet that gets their attention.  Some Philadelphians aren’t all that happy that Comcast isn’t paying its fair share now, but just got $43 million in local and state tax breaks to build a second skyscraper in Center City.  Not surprisingly people want there to be more access to the internet for all the people in Philly, no matter what the fine lines are about what the city can and cannot do in a franchise agreement.

Fortune ends their piece saying that the Harvard Business School will be using Comcast as a case study for years to come on their botched merger and what they learn from their mistakes.  We hope they hear people in Philly and around the country calling for less contempt, more access, and better cable and internet, because that would truly be worth the study.

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From our friends at Musicians United to Protect Bristol Bay:

Thunda N Shakin: Pebble Mine Song. Bristol Bay Alaska. Lopker song