Big Squeeze

Mon is the day heads of cable organizations sit down with an NCTA board committee to examine consolidating the various industry events into 2 weeks—1 centered around the spring NCTA Cable Show and another centered around CTAM Summit in the fall. Time Warner Cable pres/CEO Glenn Britt, Turner CEO Phil Kent, Comcast COO Steve Burke and Fox Networks pres/CEO Tony Vinciquerra will be joined by NCTA’s Kyle McSlarrow and Barbara York as well as the heads of cable associations, such as WICT and CTAM. Decker Anstrom of Landmark is on the committee but won’t be able to attend the event, we hear. The meeting, which is likely the 1st of several conversations, comes about because NCTA’s board wants to compress annual industry gatherings into more manageable event blocks. The notion raises a lot of questions. How can all of these events be jammed into 2 weeks? Will some of them be nixed completely? Will the industry instead look to fund some of these causes in different ways (other than fundraising dinners/events)? What happens if 2 or more events are being held simultaneously under the new schedule? How far out have some of these events been booked, and what sort of cancellation fees could possibly be involved? With the meeting slated for just 3 hours (from 2-5pm) and B&C’s Hall of Fame dinner that evening (Kent’s among the honorees), we expect folks to walk away with more questions than answers…