Comcast facing discrimination complaint by Spanish-language broadcaster Estrella

Spanish-language broadcaster Estrella claims that Comcast has denied its channels carriage on Comcast cable systems in Denver, Houston and Salt Lake City to advantage Telemundo, according to a complaint filed on Friday with the Federal Communications Commission.

Comcast subsidiary NBCUniversal owns the Spanish-language Telemundo TV network.

TV networks have been competing to attract Hispanic viewers, a fast-growing television audience.

FCC anti-discrimination rules say that a cable operator that owns programming cable channels is not allowed to give those vertically-integrated channels preference on their cable systems.

Comcast reponded on Friday to Estrella saying that the anti-discrimination rules "don't apply to broadcasters like Liberman" and that "Comcast did not drop Estrella; Liberman pulled the broadcast stations in three markets, and Comcast continues to carry Estrella TV to about six million subscribers across the country."

Comcast said that Liberman is demanding fees that aren't justified by Estrella's "limited appeal."