NEWS RELEASE

Committee on Energy and Commerce
Rep. John D. Dingell, Chairman

Chairman Dingell Challenges Comcast Decision Restricting Availability of Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) Channels

Washington, DC – Rep. John D. Dingell (D-MI), Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, sent the following letter today to the Chairman and CEO of the Comcast Corporation regarding the company’s plan to require customers to lease additional equipment from Comcast to view public, educational and governmental (PEG) channels.

Comcast has announced that, effective January 15, 2008, subscribers in many Michigan communities, for the first time, will need to rent a set-top box from Comcast to view PEG channels. During the first year, each subscriber will be given a set-top box free of charge for one television, but will need to lease additional set-top boxes for each additional television in order to view PEG channels. Further, the availability of the single free set-top box will expire after one year.

December 21, 2007 letter
January 7, 2007 Comcast response