The Senate Communications, Technology and Internet Subcommittee, chaired by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) released the witness list for Wednesday's hearing on retransmission consent. Both representatives from Cablevision and News Corp. will go before the subcommittee. Kerry vowed to hold hearings during the recent 16-day standoff between Cablevision and Fox and has crafted draft legislation to prevent consumers from being caught in the middle of negotiations via blackouts.

Kelsey Grammer has been tapped to narrate PBS' latest installment of "Pioneers of Television," this one a four-part series looking at genres of early television and the actors that populated them. PBS has also announced the debut dates of the four shows, all airing at 8-9 p.m., and almost all containing lineups straight from a Baby Boomer's video collection. Science fiction (Star Trek, Lost in Space, Twilight Zone) will air Jan. 18, Westerns (Davy Crockett; Maverick; Bonanza; Wild, Wild West) on Jan. 25; Crime Dramas ("Untouchable," "Mission Impossible," "Mannix," "I Spy," "Policewoman") on Feb. 1, and Local Kids TV …

Walt Disney Co. has begun rolling out its plan to spur digital movie purchases by removing the technological obstacles that thus far have stymied growth. The studio has quietly launched Disney Movies Online, which lets consumers buy or rent digital versions of Disney and Pixar films and watch them on the Internet. The site was conceived as a bridge to gently transition the family entertainment company's mainstream consumers from the physical to the digital world. It debuted in May without fanfare. Spurring digital sales is crucial to film studios, as traditional DVD sales decline and consumers gravitate to …

Joel Klein exited his job as NYC school chancellor for News Corp. And with Murdoch, he'll probably target as his next endeavor one of the most fertile areas of innovation today: the application of digital technology to learning. In the next few years, "what you're going to see in educational software and new solutions and online learning is going to be game-changing," says Klein, in terms of "the ability of new technology to both improve instruction and the quality of it through new learning platforms." Klein is no expert in this area, but in his time as chancellor, he …

To capture new business for its TV stations, NBC Universal has begun selling something other than just TV ads and, in the process, is opening itself up to new money. Local advertising is getting more attention, particularly as smaller marketers -- and national advertisers seeking to spend more heavily in specific regions and in smaller communities -- grow more sophisticated. NBC local stations are trumpeting a multivitamin product from Nature's Way on their Twitter feeds and Facebook pages, as well as in promotional email blasts; working Cosi restaurants into "Talk Stoop," and creating ads featuring "Today" weatherman Al …

Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs says he has "high hopes" the FCC will be able to get broadcasters to "move off" of their spectrum. He still has hopes for mobile video despite not having found the right model with FLO TV. Jacobs believes the FCC should allow tiered pricing combined with transparency to give consumers an idea of what applications are sucking up a lot of bandwidth. He thinks incentive auctions could free up "large chunks" of that spectrum, but that more would still be needed. To back up that hopeful analysis, he pointed to Qualcomm's success in paying some …

In an effort to tap into the buzz surrounding Conan O'Brien's return to late-night television, American Express Co. has enlisted the comedian as a pitchman. The credit-card company began airing a new commercial featuring the funnyman on Monday, the same day that Mr. O'Brien's new late-night comedy show, "Conan," debuted on Time Warner Inc.'s TBS. Amex has been trying to lure O'Brien into appearing in a commercial since the company sponsored his comedy tour earlier this year. Several weeks ago, the comedian said he was finally convinced by a funny script created by WPP PLC's Ogilvy & Mather, as …

Twitter has quietly formed a number of partnerships--some legal, some informal--with top news organizations. On Election Night, for instance, the company provided a steady stream of seconds-old tweets about the midterms to The New York Times, which posted them online. CNN's John King used his magic wall to show graphs categorizing 200,000 tweets, dating back to April. "It's as if you could just parachute into diners around the country and listen to what people were saying," CNN reporter Tom Foreman told viewers. And Twitter plans to ramp up these efforts for the 2012 campaign. Twitter executive Chloe …

There's been a lot of speculation about what community news outlets like AOL's Patch mean for established local news outlets. Newspaper execs from Hearst and Gannett aren't oblivious to AOL's play in their local markets, but they don't seem too worried about its long-term viability. Yet in the short term, sites like Patch are a challenge, said Lincoln Millstein, senior vice president for digital media at Hearst Newspapers. He noted that Hearst owns many local newspapers in Connecticut, where Patch and the community site Main Street Connect have also set up shop. While Millstein doesn't see them as a long-term …

While the television industry now considers social media involvement a necessity, the benefits of establishing a presence on Twitter, Facebook and other services haven't really been shown to include improved show ratings, according to a panel of television marketing executives at the Digital Hollywood conference in New York. Nonetheless, social media seems to generate buzz for some television shows and may be valuable in non-quantifiable ways. People tend to see social media as a conduit for letting television networks know the shows they like. But social network buzz around a show thus far seems to have little bearing on …