CTAM Notebook

CTAM Summit kicks off Mon in our nation’s capital, and while the association promises to keep to its marketing roots, the locale was too good to completely ignore nearby policymakers. Enter NCTA, which will host an awards presentation during Tues’ opening session. NCTA pres/CEO Kyle McSlarrow will present Reps Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Greg Walden (R-OR) with the NCTA Consumer Champion Award for their leadership in organizing the Digital TV Congressional Caucus. In addition to recognizing policy makers, the event helps raise the profile of the ’09 DTV transition to marketers. — Other Summit news: CTAM’s On Demand Consortium will demo its EPG Simulator, an online tool to ease the process for authoring VOD program descriptors. The idea is to make sure that consumers can see clear and consistent info about movies and TV shows presented by cable on demand. CTAM and Anystream have created a platform that lets nets view VOD metadata exactly as it will appear on customers’ screens. To check out the tech: visit the Anystream display in the Digital Media Lab (CTAM Corporate Fund members can view it at http://www.ctam.com via a password protected link).