When Comcast acquired NBC Universal, part of its deal with the FCC was that it would "launch 10 new independently owned cable channels, with most backed by African Americans and Latinos, by 2018." Well. The first two Black People Channels have been announced. Black people, prepare for a fiesta of cable mediocrity!

The first two of Comcast's minority-focused will go to Puffy, and Magic Johnson. Puffy's channel, Revolt, will be "a music and news television channel influenced by the nonstop chatter of social networking Web sites." So... CNN, with more Rihanna videos? Sounds awful. Magic Johnson's channel, Aspire, will be, uh, let's see, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and a touch of magic.: "a 24-hour channel with a focus on what Johnson called positive, uplifting images of African Americans... Aspire's mix will include film, TV, music and comedy, with a combination of acquired projects and original programming. 'There will some performing arts and shows about faith,' Johnson said."

So... USA Network as filtered through the "African-American history" section of a middle school textbook. Sounds excruciating. Presumably Comcast will find a way to split the remaining eight channels between Will Smith and Oprah Winfrey, the only two other publicly accepted black entertainment figures in America.

White-owned cable networks are also vapid mishmashes of pap, so this development bodes well for equality.

[Photo: AP]