House Panel To Hear Digital Video Views
The House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee on Thursday will explore video competition in the digital age, including access by multichannel programming providers and consumers to content via TV and the Internet. A prime focus of the hearing will be a provision of the 1992 Cable Act that forces vertically integrated cable operators -- those that own both cable systems and content -- to make their owned cable networks available to satellite firms like Dish Network and DirecTV and to telecom companies like Verizon, which offers the FIOS video service, a source familiar with the issue said.
The hearing may also address the so-called "terrestrial loophole" through which a cable operator with programming assets can avoid program access requirements that apply to satellite delivered content. Witnesses scheduled to appear include Verizon Vice President Terrence Denson; Sunflower Broadband CEO Patrick Knorr; "Battlestar Galactica" executive producer Ronald Moore; Disney Media Networks President of Global Distribution Benjamin Pyne; Cablevision Chief Operating Officer Thomas Rutledge; and Progress and Freedom Foundation President Adam Thierer.
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