Broadband Plus - The New Western Show

Broadband Plus - The New Western Show

December 3rd - December 6th, 2002
Anaheim, CA

For the second consecutive year the Anaheim Convention Center has been the host facility for the New Western Show, and it's semi-recent renovation has left visitors appreciating the spaciousness, style and technology that naturally enhances the experience of a conference attendee. The California Communications & Telecommunications Association might have preferred, however, that this year's Broadband Plus could have claimed a bit more wear and tear on the center. The exhibit floor and session conference rooms offered plenty of compelling product demonstrations and information including the industry darling, VOD, more from the Personal Video Recording world, advances in conditional access, and an encouraging demonstration of an 802.11-A wireless system that might do wonders for the household of Joe Moneybags. And yet, the attendance continued it's annual decline from the record crowds of the 2000 Western Show in Los Angeles. Many show observations were flavored by the predominance of technology and lack of programming content. Still, significant changes continue to occur in the industry and those who did attend were able to gain that education in a more relaxed environment.

Interactive Television continued to define itself as popular services such as Video On Demand, and the Personal Video Recorder enjoy growing interest in the financially cautious consumer markets. VOD is generally agreed upon by Multi-System Operators as one of the most compelling new features that can be offered to attract subscribers to digital cable, and help reduce the number of subscribers lost to a Digital Satellite Service. The variations of VOD are accelerating at different rates as feedback from trials help to develop the most efficient business models. Subscription VOD is moving forward with momentum from the success that HBO, Showtime, and the Starz/Encore group have measured over the past year. The latter expressing confidence that the $28 per month that Video Rental Outlets currently enjoy, will decrease as more consumers turn to digital cable. Reminding the audience that DSS cannot offer VOD, Comcast CEO, Brian Roberts announced On Demand trials with NBC to a half-million customers in the Philadelphia market. Early returns indicate every reason to expand the service, including Comcast's exploration into an offering of High Definition VOD. Along the way, improvements to the user interface, increased programming, and a determination of realistic pricing should further accelerate the rollout of VOD. Tiering, a pricing concept that a cynic could easily re-phrase as "nickel-and-diming", in conjunction with On Demand allows an operator to offer content that might otherwise claim too much of the systems resources. If you are an Opera fan, and have wondered why there is so little content available through your cable system, you can be sure it is because of the lack of a reasonable customer base. There are simply not enough of you to justify the assignment of precious system resources. As a VOD service, however, an MSO could possibly gain enough subscription, or pay-per-view interest to validate the use of more efficient VOD resources needed to make an Opera Channel available to its customers.

Many MSO representatives maintain the importance of establishing VOD before increasing the development of PVR services and support. As Broadband nears the end of what everyone hopes to be the last significant infrastructure upgrade, attention can begin to focus on the role of the PVR. Waiting in the wings, of course, are the Set Top Box manufacturers with PVR functionality and the associated interfaces. While there is strong interest in VOD from most sectors of the industry, there is growing dialogue about the benefits and caveats of the PVR. The word Napster is still used by wary executives that feel that peer-to-peer applications are a genie that is not going back in the bottle any time soon. In general, hi-tech outlaws are keeping pace with technology that enlarges the palette of services consumers have shown to be economically viable. Content folks are anxiously aware of this and confidently suggest that VOD offers a higher degree of protection from copyright violation. Others feel that the pace and proliferation of the PVR will dictate the success of VOD in general. A higher degree of control is still important to those consumers that find themselves in front of a monitor with a remote in their hand. A common argument throughout the show was that the PVR could prove to be more attractive to cable subs because of this unproven control advantage rather than relying on the operator to deliver desired content.

Meanwhile, Enhanced TV deployments in the North American markets remain microscopic. There was not much session time dedicated to ETV during this year's convention. The Broadband Plus folks planned well, as the attendance for these sessions was noticeably small. Platform compatibility issues remain the primary scapegoat for the dismal existence of the enhanced television experience in the U.S. and Canada. The obligatory discussion of the OpenCable initiative ensued with more comparisons to the success that MultiMedia Home Platform has had several time zones form the closest U.S. cable operator, and the core similarities that MHP has to OCAP's pending specification. The long and the short of it being that OpenCable is not quite ready for implementation. On top of the stagnant standards problem, any venture capital that is available to this sector of the economy is still finding its way to the land of more promising returns, including the growing amount of resources dedicated to Voice over IP and High Definition build-outs.

Our friends at the American Film Institute reported their content efforts have shifted back to development for the larger population of thin-client set-top boxes deployed around the country. It must be frustrating, though, to any ETV content producer that find themselves backpedaling in search of more interaction, only to witness this seasons commitment from several MSOs to buy higher-end STBs to accommodate the current demand for High Definition and the projected demand for PVR enabled boxes. ETV encouragement may be waning, but as Eric Idle might suggest, it's not quite dead. At least one session panelist conceded that the arch enemy of cable, DSS, might currently enjoy a lead in interactive and enhanced television, but their gains could be wiped out with the promise of system resources that an upgraded cable infrastructure can throw at the elusive vapor-market. Despite any optimistic view that the cable industry has not taken full advantage of the promise of Enhanced TV, one ratings report of Nielsen Families indicates of those that are aware of an enhanced program, only 1% to 2% actually participate. Not to be deterred, the Interactive Television Alliance, a non-profit organization promoting the deployment of iTV through public awareness and industry outreach, hosted a booth on the convention floor to help fulfill their mission. Members of the Local Enhancement Collaborative, producers of the ETVCookbook.org, were invited to share the exhibit space in demonstration of their latest efforts in ATVEF based enhanced television.

Other content news included a few of the cable operators Mercurially stating that your subscription rates are bound to increase 5% to 8% this year. Followed, without a breath, by the reminder that the messenger should not be killed. Who's to blame? MSOs claim it's the programming people, and ironically during a week that the champion of televised sports, Roone Arledge passed away, the sports networks were identified as the primary reason you will need to dig a little bit deeper this year. It doesn't matter if you don't watch sports. It doesn't matter if you are frustrated by the amount of financial exaggeration that is applied to seemingly any consumable adjunct of a sporting event. The numbers indicate that the masses want to watch sports, and they will pay extra to keep it coming into their homes, despite the amount of commercial interruptions, the viewer inundation of promotion for network programming that may, or may not be consistent with the profile of your average sports junkie, as well as the continued tolerance of station breaks returning to the game in an already-in-progress state. Not really a problem. The announcers are there to describe the action you missed while subjected to just one more clip of advertising that will ultimately help to pay the salary of your favorite hometown player, likely to be playing in another town next season. (The sarcasm of these last few sentences is part of a modest effort to convey the frustration sensed in the panel's discussion of higher rates, and the reasons for them). Never fear, there were a few suggestions of cable operators developing a sports tier, creating an option for those who don't know a squeeze play from a hat trick, and more importantly, don't want to know. For those that do know those sporting descriptions, there is some bittersweet evidence that enough is enough in some markets. For example, Cablevision of New York decided not to extend the broadcast contract of their hometown Yankees, after the pinstriped executives recently requested a 300% increase in carriage fees. It's too soon to tell if this is the beginning of a pattern, but unless you're a sports fan in NYC, it's likely you find merit in the stance that Cablevision is taking.

On the regulatory front, several representatives from the FCC made the enjoyable trip to Anaheim to confirm everything that interested parties had recently heard from their Washington sources. Chairman Powell's legal advisor, Susan Eid, did not hesitate to express their office's disappointment with the Consumer Electronic Association's response to the Chairman's voluntary DTV acceleration plan, as if to help explain the Commission's implied skepticism of meeting the objectives of the 2006 drop-dead date. Taboo expressions for a cable environment, including dual must-carry and multicast, although addressed, were glossed over with a status quo acknowledgment. Desiring a bit more insight to an arguably potent issue, post-session scrutiny of the panelists on the topic of must-carry merely led this writer to an invitation of visiting the FCC website for 'all the latest information'.

The CCTA's Broadband Plus, or some manifestation of a Western Cable Show is scheduled for next year. Despite negative rumblings overheard in various conversations throughout show venues, it is clear the cable technology will continue to move at a pace that will support more than one national conference each year. With an improved economy, many hope the cable industry will find a proportional improvement in the benefit an annual California cable event can bring to the industry.