FCC
Commissioner Michael Copps, senior counsel to the chairman for transactions
John Flynn, and Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake are scheduled to headline the
FCC's contingent at the July 13 forum in Chicago on the Comcast/NBCU merger.
Copps has long had
concerns about the impact of media consolidation.
Chairman Julius
Genachowski will make remarks in a
prerecorded video, according to a spokesperson.
The forum
will be divided into two panels, the first dealing with online video
distribution, and the second with multichannel video distribution.
That is
according to a just-released agenda for the event, which is not an
official hearing where all of the commissioners would be expected to
attend. Slated for the first panel, moderated by Flynn, are Jeffrey Blum, deputy
general counsel, DISH Network; Susan Crawford, professor, Cardozo Law School,
and visiting research collaborator, Princeton University; Markham C.
Erickson, partner, Holch & Erickson LLP, and executive director,
NetCoalition; Travis Parsons, senior director, business development, Sezmi; Josh
Silver, president and CEO, Free Press; Scott Wallsten, vice president for research
and senior fellow, Technology Policy Institute; and Susan Whiting, vice chair,
Nielsen Co.
The second panel, moderated
by Lake, will feature Colleen Abdoulah, CEO, WideOpenWest; Tyrone Brown,
president of Media Access Project and a former FCC commissioner; Brian Lawlor,
president-chairman, NBC Television Affiliates, and senior vice president of
television, The E.W. Scripps Co.; William Rogerson, professor of economics,
Northwestern University; Ken Solomon, CEO, The Tennis Channel; and James Speta,
professor, Northwestern University School of Law.
