Contentinople - Erin Barker - News Bits: Obama Adviser to Head FCC

Written by Erin Barker

Tuesday, January 13. 2009 at 11:30 AM EST Post a comment

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President-elect Barack Obama is planning to nominate his campaign's top technology adviser, Julius Genachowski, as head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) , according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

Genachowski, who is also an old law school classmate of Obama's, was originally suspected to be on the shortlist to be America's first CTO. He's an FCC vet from the Clinton years, after which he was an exec at Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp . More recently, he was a founder of Washington-based VC firm LaunchBox Digital.

As Obama's tech adviser he supported "open Internet or 'net neutrality' protections; media-ownership rules that encourage more diversity; and expansion of affordable broadband access across the country," WSJ reports.

The news is so far well received among the tech community (though you can't please everybody). Our primary concern, of course, is that Genachowski is a lot harder to spell than, say, Martin.

Also on Capital Hill:

One of Genachowski's first tasks, should he be nominated and confirmed, as we're all anticipating, is the upcoming transition from analog to digital, which is currently scheduled for Feb. 17 (mark your calendars!). Obama, however, has suggested delaying the transition, citing concerns about rural, low-income, and elderly populations being cut off from news and emergency broadcasts. (In December, Nielsen reported that 6.8 percent of the 114 million U.S. households with televisions weren't ready for the transition.) Current FCC Chair Kevin Martin opposes a delay, saying it would cause confusion.

YouTube Inc. has teamed up with Congress to launch two new video channels: one for the Senate and one for the House. Sure, it was one thing when Obama decided to put his addresses on YouTube. But Congress too? (Not that I don't totally want to see Senator Robert Byrd's skateboard tricks.) "People out there don't really know what senators and congressmen do on a daily basis. This will give them a sense of what they are doing," Steve Grove, YouTube's head of news and politics, told The New York Times. Sounds fascinating.

Tags: Hires, Technology, YouTube

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