House Schedules FCC Oversight Hearing

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The House Communications Subcommittee has slated Dec. 12 for the FCC oversight hearing chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) signaled last week was coming.

It will be the first hearing with the newly constituted, full complement of commissioners — FCC chairman Tom Wheeler and commissioner Michael O'Rielly were both sworn in earlier this month.

Walden said he expected it to be "an open, wide ranging discussion that will include everything from cell phones on airplanes to FCC process reforms and the status of the incentive auctions."

Also likely to come up at the hearing, Walden said, is the status of the FCC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to eliminate the UHF discount, which it voted on in September.

John Eggerton
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.