FCC's March 8 Hearing in House Postponed

The House Communications Subcommittee is postponing its planned March 8 FCC reauthorization hearing at which all the commissioners had been expected to testify, according to a copy of an email to Hill staffers alerting them to the change Wednesday obtained by B&C.

The hearing was scheduled to deal with budget issues, spectrum auctions and FCC process, among other things.

Subcommittee chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has said her priorities are reauthorization of both the National Telecommunications & Information Administration and the FCC. Her first oversight hearing was on NTIA.

“I’m looking forward to having new FCC Chairman Pai and Commissioners O’Reilly and Clyburn testify before the subcommittee,” said Blackburn in announcing the hearing last month. “It will provide our members the opportunity to learn more about the final stages of the broadcast incentive auction, Chairman Pai’s agenda, and FCC reauthorization.”

That hearing was to have been one of two hearings with the FCC commissioners, the other being a Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing, which is still scheduled for 10 a.m. on March 8, at least according to the committee website.

The House hearing had been announced Feb. 10 but had not been listed on the E&C website.

The e-mail does not say why it was postponed or when it might return. A committee spokesman cited "scheduling issues."

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.