Topic: Comcast To Offer Pentagon Television Channel

Washington Examiner
September 13, 2007
Pg. 18
By Whitney Blake, The Examiner
WASHINGTON - Comcast will begin offering the Pentagon Channel to its digital cable subscribers in the metro area starting next Tuesday. The programming, which will appear on channel 185, features Pentagon briefings, Capitol Hill testimony, news shows, special documentaries, profiles of military personnel, a fitness show and programs from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The digital channel has been carried by Comcast in Prince George’s County over the past year, and, due to positive feedback and requests for the channel in other areas, Comcast has decided to carry it in the rest of its Potomac coverage areas, including Montgomery and Frederick counties, the Blue Ridge area of Virginia, and Washington, Spates said.
“Due to the high military presence” in the region, there’s a “climate for this interest,” said Comcast spokeswoman Lauren Spates.
Comcast has approximately 1.1 million customers in the area, 65 percent of whom are digital subscribers.
Currently, troops at more than 300 U.S. domestic military bases and in 177 countries have access to the channel, said Public Affairs Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Allison Barber, who launched the channel in May 2004. The programming is offered free to cable and satellite providers, but Barber said bandwidth availability is still an issue for some providers. In total, over 13 million Americans have access at present, and over 800,000 troops overseas.
“We are thrilled that Comcast has added the Pentagon Channel to its portfolio,” Barber said.
The channel is also currently carried by Verizon Fios and RCN in the metro area.
Those in areas without the channel can see the content online, which is a popular alternative. Some podcasts are downloaded several hundred thousand times in the course of a month, Barber said.
The Pentagon Channel also plans to expand its coverage in the near future, opening bureaus in Germany, Italy, Spain and Kuwait. Right now the channel has small deployed military units in Iraq and Afghanistan, which will also be enlarged, said Barber.