No Plans to Stream June 7 Comcast-NBCU Hearing

Access to online content is one of the issues teed up by the FCC for the Comcast-NBC Universal merger, but at press time there were no plans by the House Judiciary Committee to provide online access to its June 7 field hearing on the deal in L.A.

That is according to a spokesman for the committee. C-SPAN said it also had no plans to stream the hearing, either, saying it had received no witness list.

The same Hill spokesman said the committee would be happy to have some outside party provide Internet streaming of the hearing, and that a witness list should be ready by today. He pointed out that the major local TV stations, including NBC's, had said they planned to provide some coverage of the event.

The FCC is also planning a July 13 public forum on the deal in Chicago, where Comcast and NBC each have a major presence. An FCC spokeswoman says that event will be streamed.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.