@ NCTA: Super Session — Lots Of Groundcover

CTIA piled on keynotes; NCTA goes for super panels instead. The super-sized Monday morning session was moderated by CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo with panelists John Chambers, Cisco Systems; Gary Forsee, Sprint Nextel; Dick Parsons, Time Warner; Brian Roberts, Comcast; Anne Sweeney, Walt Disney; Ed Zander, Motorola. Everyone was on their best behavior; even the announcement of the ABC.com experiment drew only pointed remarks. Sweeney spoke about making sure that “everything we do in this new space has got to refer back to our primary platforms, especially Brian’s platform.” Roberts, in turn, said he had to think Disney’s digital moves are a “business matter” and not about putting programs on every device because it can be done.
When the subject of Google and Yahoo came up, Parsons’s remarks conjured up the duality seen so often these days — good for content, competitors of AOL. Despite all of AOL’s strides this last year, Parsons felt compelled to remind people that “AOL is not dead” and needs to compete head-on with Google and Yahoo. I don’t recall anyone raising the question of Google’s billion-dollar investment in and commercial deal with AOL. (Parsons did get off a good line about iPods, reminding people that without content iPods would just be interesting.)
Roberts took a different tack: “I think they’re disrupting advertising in a way that may have implications … They’re groundbreakers in showing where advertising wants to go.” He contends that the single-digit ad revenues make online companies less of a threat to Comcast; offering it instead as a pitch for the targeted ad capability of cable.
Later during the press Q&A, the subject of Slingbox and other disruptive technologies came up. Parsons, with his legal background said, “I can’t guarantee aren’t going to see some lawsuits because you probably are.” Roberts suggests licensing could solve a lot of issues. “Why not do it in a licensed model? If usage happens, value follows.”
You can catch most of the main session via the audio; had a little glitch at the beginning.
mp3logo1.gifYou can download the audio for the hour-plus opening session here
Or you can stream it here … click on the arrow:

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