Comcast's Cohen To Issue PEG Apology To Congress
Will Admit Fumbling Plan Concerning Public, Educational, and Government Channels
Multichannel news
Ted Hearn
01/29/08

WASHINGTON - In a contrite statement, Comcast Corp. executive vice president David Cohen is planning to apologize to a House subcommittee Tuesday afternoon for fumbling a plan that required thousands of Michigan subscribers to obtain at least one digital set-top box to view local public, educational, and government (PEG) channels.

"In retrospect, we failed to communicate adequately our goals and to work cooperatively with our local partners to produce a `win' for everyone. This is not the way we want to do business - in Michigan or in the rest of the country - and I want to apologize for that," Cohen is planning to say, according to a copy of his testimony obtained Monday by Multichannel News.

Cohen is scheduled to testify before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.

Comcast's plan to move PEG channels to digital would have affected about 40% of its 1.3 million Michigan customers.
[...]
While Cohen's testimony had a conciliatory tone, he stressed that the entire planet is going digital and that Comcast is trying to reclaim analog capacity in a manner that did not inconvenience customers.