Protesters Gather Outside Comcast In Denver Over Pulling Of Estrella TV

DENVER (CBS4) - Dozens of Comcast customers and Latino community leaders protested outside Comcast offices on Iliff Avenue in Denver on Monday.

Protesters are demanding Comcast restore service to a couple of Spanish-language networks, including Estrella TV.

Some say the company is treating Spanish-language viewers unfairly after pulling service in late February.

"By taking Estrella TV of the air, Comcast chooses to limit Hispanic voices to those channels owned by it or other non-minority owned and founded giant corporations," a news release stated.

The protesters believe Comcast pulled Estrella TV because it competes with Telemundo, which is owned by Comcast.

Cindy Parsons with Comcast released a statement regarding Monday's protest.

"We are very disappointed that Liberman Broadcasting has decided to take away its Estrella broadcast stations from Comcast's customers in Houston, Denver, and Salt Lake City. Fortunately, Liberman's actions do not affect 80 percent of Comcast's customers who will continue to receive Estrella in markets like Miami, Chicago, New York, and Fresno."

Parsons said it's the first time a programmer has pulled its signal from Comcast's customers and the company finds it "puzzling."

"Liberman's precipitous action is particularly puzzling given that we are Estrella's largest distributor and have been negotiating in good faith to reach a fair arrangement with Liberman," Parsons said. "The bottom line is that we want to continue to carry the Estrella stations for our customers in these three markets and offered to do so under our existing arrangements with Liberman.

"Unfortunately, Liberman is insisting that we go far beyond the market and that our customers pay millions of dollars for Estrella programming, which is not widely viewed among Latino audiences, and also is insisting on significant additional distribution throughout our footprint."

Parsons said Comcast is the largest cable provider of Spanish-language network packages in the nation.

"We hope Liberman decides to return these stations to our customers."