House Schedules FCC Oversight Hearing

The House Communications Subcommittee plans to hold an FCC oversight hearing March 22 and wants all the commissioners to testify, the committee said Friday.

That will come fewer than three weeks after the Senate Commerce Committee holds its FCC oversight hearing with all the commissioners.

“The upcoming hearing with the FCC Commissioners will allow the committee to continue to exercise its critical oversight responsibilities over the FCC and to ask the hard questions,” said Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.). Among those hard questions are expected to be some targeted at chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal to open up set-top info to third parties.

The subcommittee has also scheduled a March 17 hearing on the transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) oversight from the U.S. to an international multistakeholder model.

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.