Boucher To Hear From 'Battlestar' E.P.
Thursday's witness list for the House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee hearing on video competition is pretty standard fare -- Benjamin Pyne of Disney Media Networks (big content); Verizon Vice President Terrence Denson (big telecom); Sunflower Broadband Chief Operating Officer Patrick Knorr (little cable/Internet); Cablevision Chief Operating Officer Thomas Rutledege (big cable/Internet); and Progress & Freedom Foundation President Adam Thierer (think tanker). The wild card, however, is "Battlestar Galactica" executive producer and Peabody Award winner Ronald Moore.
Moore, who is also known for his work on several iterations of "Star Trek," will most likely be at the table because of his prominent role during the massive Writers Guild of America strike, which began in November 2007 and lasted 14 weeks. His show and other popular series made available for download on iTunes were flashpoints during the feud between writers and Hollywood studios over compensation for online content.
Moore might be on hand to advocate for the revival of so-called "Fin-Syn" regulation. The FCC put the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules on the books in the 1970s to restrict formal relationships between TV networks and those who produced programming for the networks. The purpose was to encourage a vibrant market for independently produced programming. The regulations were repealed in the early 1990s after court challenges but some want them back, arguing that a structural separation between content production and distribution would be good for business. "This is a huge fracture line in the Hollywood community," one observer said.
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