Streamless: No Live Stream of Comcast-NBCU Hearing

We can put a man on the moon, but apparently we can’t get it together to live-stream today’s hearing on the Comcast-NBC Universal merger from Los Angeles.The House Judiciary Committee, which is holding the field hearing, had said it was not streaming it, with not much explanation beyond the logistics and cost cited by one committee source. C-SPAN cited the lack of a witness list as one reason the network didn’t have it on the calendar.

Why would a powerful congressional committee hold a hearing in a big city on an issue that includes access to online content and not make sure it could be streamed to the rest of the country? I don’t know.

Media reform group Free Press hired someone in L.A. to tape the hearing and try to live-stream it, but a spokesperson said that the freelancer they hired opined that wireless connectivity seemed to be available but that that he was unable to stream the coverage. Tweets from others at the hearing suggested connectivity problems.

A committee spokesman had told B&C Friday that the committee would be happy to work with an outside party to stream the hearing.

The Free Press spokeswoman said she would post its coverage as soon as possible, both on its Website as well as excerpts on YouTube.