The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation has a panel set up representing a wide range of interests for hits hearing today on the Future of Radio. Broadcast veteran Russ Withers will be going up to the plate for radio interests. Also on the guest list are Mac McCaughan, Merge Records; Tim Westergren, Pandora; Derek Turner, Free Press; Carol Pierson, National Federation of Community Broadcasters; and Dana Davis Rehm, National Public Radio. We’ll be there so you don’t have to be.
And, right on cue, Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Trent Lott (R-MS) will hitchhike a press conference onto the hearing to discuss the rapidity with which they suspect FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is attempting to get some new rules through the 8th Floor.
RBR/TVBR observation: This event was scheduled just ahead of Martin’s announcement that he was looking to vote on possible changes to media ownership rules at the FCC’s 12/18/07 open meeting. We suspected we’d hear a good deal about that, and now we know we will. And since the FCC is not being represented, we fully expect another hearing on this in the very near future.
