Spectrum, Comcast-NBCU Deal Dominate Hearing

摘要

Nobody in the broadcast and wireless industries was fooled last week by the ratcheted-down rhetoric at a Capitol Hill hearing on spectrum. The battle lines remained clear in a momentary calm before the firestorms. In his first Hill appearance as president of the National Association of Broadcasters, former Senator Gordon Smith was the only witness to be pushed to complete his testimony as he laid out the case for broadcasting. "Broadcasting and universal broadband do not represent opposite choices or an either-or proposition for policymakers and the public," Smith said. Instead, he argued, both are an important part of a communications ecosystem, suggesting it was better for the government to let all flowers bloom rather than pull up broadcasting by the roots and hand it to the wireless industry.