Sources: McCaskill Eyeing Dec. 10 For Cable Hearing

By John Eggerton
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

According to sources, Sen. Claire McCaskill is eyeing Dec. 10 for a hearing on cable rates and customer service. One source said she has been trying to line up witnesses but the date is not yet set in stone and could slip.

McCaskill (D-Mo.) chairs the Senate Commerce Committee's Consumer Protection subcommittee and has been hammering the cable industry on rates and customer service for some time, including trying to amend STELAR, the satellite reauthorization bill, to include a bunch of provisions to put cable's feet to the fire. 

In exchange for McCaskill's withdrawing that amendment, Commerce Committee chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) assured her the committee would look further into the issues. Rockefeller has similar concerns, but needed to pass a STELAR bill that would make it to the President's desk, as this one did.

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John Eggerton
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.