Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld sees...
Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld sees as wanting the list of former FCC chairmen set to testify before Congress next week. The House Communications Subcommittee scheduled its previously announced Jan. 15 hearing on Communications Act overhaul for 10…
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a.m. in 2123 Rayburn, it said in a hearing notice Wednesday night (http://1.usa.gov/1ild2QW). The subcommittee has not announced witnesses but said those testifying will be former FCC chairmen. Industry officials have told us these will be Julius Genachowski, Michael Powell, Reed Hundt and Dick Wiley (CD Jan 9 p6). A committee aide confirmed to us on Thursday that Powell, Hundt and Wiley will be testifying. “Of this list, the only one who doesn’t represent carriers or possibly seek to acquire them is Reed Hundt,” Feld told us by email of the initial four rumored names. “They couldn’t ask Kevin Martin or Michael Copps? Hell, if there was ever an FCC Chair that made cable market power and retrans (as well as TV white spaces) on the agenda, it’s Kevin Martin. And Copps would provide a truly unique and powerful voice for media diversity and network neutrality.” Feld worried about the balance of such a witness list and said none of these former chairmen would be able to speak to media diversity. Martin’s “campaign against cable” would have provided a key balance to Powell heading NCTA, Feld added. Feld also pointed to Copps and Martin as the only two former chairmen who back indecency rules. While Feld personally favors a repeal of the broadcast indecency rule, he said “we should have a real debate with ardent defenders as well as those favoring repeal.” House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., wrote a joint guest blog Thursday for Broadcasting & Cable describing their desire to update the act and pegging that to the innovation on display at CES. “Our work will be exhaustive, inviting industries and innovators, consumers and citizens to join us in an open dialogue,” Upton and Walden said (http://bit.ly/K8l6bm). “The committee’s examination of the satellite television law, for instance, has reminded us that more nuanced laws governing different forms of communication are woefully out of sync with each other.”