Cable Chiefs, Trade Groups Discuss Consolidating Events
No Final Decisions Made at New York Meeting
By Steve Donohue and Kent Gibbons -- Multichannel News, 10/22/2007 1:34:00 PM
CEOs from major cable operators and cable networks met with leaders from several industry organizations Monday in New York to discuss consolidating industry events around one week each spring and one week each fall.
The meeting, which was held at Time Warner Inc.’s corporate headquarters at Time Warner Center in Manhattan, featured presentations from Turner Broadcasting System Inc. CEO Phil Kent, Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt, Fox Networks Group CEO Tony Vinciquerra and Comcast chief operating officer Steve Burke.
The goal of the meeting, which was organized by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, was to begin the process of identifying meetings or conferences that could be moved to a common week each fall or spring. The consolidation could eventually impact groups such as Cable Positive and Women in Cable Telecommunications.
But NCTA senior vice president for communications and public affairs Rob Stoddard said “no specific decisions were made” regarding consolidating industry events. Stoddard described the meeting as a “virtually wide open conversation and open ended discussion regarding our ability as an industry to pull some of these events together, and aim for those two weeks in the spring and the fall.”
Groups that attended the meeting included the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, Cable Positive, the Cable and Telecommunications Human Resources Association, the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers, CableLabs, WICT and the Association of Cable Communicators.
Cable Positive president Steve Villano, whose organization holds a fundraiser in New York each spring to support HIV/AIDS awareness, said he pleased with Monday’s meeting.
“It wasn’t an us versus them” situation, Villano said regarding the interaction between association leaders and cable CEOs at the meeting. “I thought it was very positive,” he added.
NCTA president Kyle McSlarrow and senior vice president of industry affairs Barbara York represented the cable trade organization at the meeting.
Stoddard said meeting participants agreed to schedule follow-up conference calls to further discuss the idea of consolidating industry events and conferences.
