AT&T plans to paint the video marketplace as...

testify Wednesday before the Senate Commerce Committee at its 2:30 p.m. hearing on the future of video in 216 Hart. “Companies that provide bundles of broadband and video will foster, rather than impede, the emergence of over-the-top programmers,” Stankey’s prepared testimony says. “Only by embracing the reality that over-the-top services are complements of their own services, just as traditional video can be a complement, will broadband providers retain and grow their relationship with their customers.” AT&T’s acquiring DirecTV would be “good for consumers,” he plans to say. Dish plans to counter, however, with Deputy General Counsel Jeff Blum outlining “competitive concerns” about that deal: “Among other things, AT&T and DIRECTV will also be able to combine their market power to leverage programming content, to the potential detriment of consumers,” says Blum’s testimony. He also plans to slam Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable as “too much power in the hands of too few.” But “consolidation may be necessary for the traditional” multichannel video programming distributors “to compete with the Googles, Netflixes, Amazons, and Apples of the world,” University of Nebraska College of Law professor Gus Hurwitz, another witness, told us, describing his testimony. “Probably the biggest thing that Congress could do on this front is modernize the broadcasting-related portions of the Copyright and Communications acts, to bring them into the Internet era. In their current form, they create uncertainty and barriers both for new entrants and innovation by existing firms,” Hurwitz said. Other witnesses, as expected (CD July 14 p13), are Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen, Public Knowledge CEO Gene Kimmelman and Writers Guild of America, West member Shawn Ryan.