Multicultural
Comcast Celebrates Pride Month on its Entertainment Platforms
Multicultural
Comcast Celebrates Pride Month on its Entertainment Platforms
Jun 14, 2022
Key Takeaways
Livestream shopping event on June 15 spotlights products from LGBTQ+-owned businesses.
New editorial collection showcases history of LGBTQ+ representation in entertainment.
Last year’s Pride Month editorial increased usage and engagement of LGBTQ+ programming by 60%.
For over a decade, Xfinity has celebrated the LGBTQ+ community through content destinations on its platforms. Today, Xfinity’s LGTBQ Film & TV destination curates programming from across hundreds of networks and streaming services and is available year-round across all our entertainment platforms – including Xfinity X1, Xfinity Flex, Xfinity Stream and XClass TV. And each June during Pride Month, we often debut new features, functionality and content collections that make it even easier for our customers to find LGBTQ+ programming on our platforms.
For example, our 2021 Pride destination featured more content and ways to navigate than ever, including hundreds of free titles made by available by our LGBTQ SVODs, and new multicultural collections such as Black Pride and Latinx Pride. As a result of these efforts during the month of June, we increased viewing of LGBTQ+ viewing on our platform by 60% compared to the prior year.
+60%
Increase in LGBTQ+ content viewership
Two of the unique ways we are using our platform to celebrate Pride Month this year include a live shopping event to help promote and sell products from LGBTQ+ owned companies, and an interactive timeline of LGBTQ+ representation in entertainment spanning content from dozens of networks and streaming services.
NBCU Livestream Shopping Event with Daryn Carp
On June 15, Comcast will partner with NBC to host “LGBTQ+ Owned” an interactive livestream shopping event on Xfinity X1 and Flex. Accessible through Xfinity’s Watchwith livestreaming app, the Pride-themed event will be hosted by Bravo personality Daryn Carp, feature special guests like Julia Lemigova from Real Housewives of Miami, and introduce viewers to two LGBTQ+ owned businesses and allies, Stuzo, a gender free clothing company, and Roverlund, design-forward gear for pets and their people. Products from these brands will be featured throughout the show and, using the NBCUniversal Checkout commerce platform, a unique QR will appear on screen during the product segments that will send viewers directly to a mobile webpage to purchase.
The live event will take place on June 15 at 5pm ET. Customers can find the event within the Pride Month destination on X1 and Flex, or by saying “Watchwith” into their voice remote.
Can’t Be Erased: An Abridged History of LGBTQ+ Representation
This year’s Pride Destination features a first-of-its-kind interactive history of LGBTQ+ representation in entertainment, researched and created by our LGBTQ+ editor, Scott. Titled “Can’t be Erased: An Abridged History of LGBTQ+ Representation,” the collection includes 36 entertainment milestones related to LGBTQ+ representation in movies and TV and spans programming from dozens of networks, studios and streaming services available on our platforms.
An example of the milestones Scott highlights in the collection, include:
- 1895’s Dickson Experimental Sound Film, the first known film with live-recorded sound and often acknowledged as the first media representation of homosexuality.
- 1927’s Wings, a silent film set during World War I and one of the first films to show two men kissing.
- 1972’s That Certain Summer, widely considered the first sympathetic depiction of gay people on TV.
- 1993’s Philadelphia, one of the first major Hollywood films to tackle topics such as homophobia and AIDS.
- 1998’s Will & Grace, the iconic series about two gay men and two heterosexual women become a groundbreaking part of NBC’s “Must See TV” lineup.
- 2001’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the first series to develop a lesbian relationship between two characters.
- 2005’s Brokeback Mountain, an award-winning film that become a cultural phenomenon about two cowboys in a gay relationship.
- 2019’s Euphoria, an evocative series that highlighted a love story relatively unseen on TV, one between cisgender and trans women.
