C-SPAN to Stream Media-Ownership Hearing

C-SPAN said Tuesday that it will stream Wednesday’s Energy & Commerce Committee hearing on media ownership.

The hearing will feature all five Federal Communications Commission members, as well as representatives of the newspaper, broadcasting and media-activist communities.

C-SPAN vice president Peter Kiley said in an e-mail that "commitments to other programs" prevented C-SPAN from carrying the hearing live on one of its TV channels, but a tape of the hearing will air at a later time.

The hearing will stream live at C-SPAN.org starting at 9:30 a.m. -- if it starts on time -- and will be archived for on-demand viewing.

C-SPAN covered last week's delayed FCC public meeting, with a team ready to go at 9:30 a.m. for a hearing that eventually started at about 9:20 p.m.

Wednesday’s hearing could have some fireworks, with chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) having asked FCC chairman Kevin Martin to delay a Dec. 18 vote on loosening the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban that the chairman has said he would like to vote on, effectively wrapping up a years-long review of media ownership.

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.