In technologically changing times, the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing is trying to increase input from stakeholders from outside the core cable industry, with a new category of members and by including tech companies in some gatherings, CTAM executives told reporters at its headquarters Wednesday. One challenge industrywide, they said in National Harbor, Maryland, is how to buttress relationships through in-person meetings, with NCTA's INTX show no more (see 1610070023) and CTAM's Summit ended several years ago. No one event took INTX's place, and some are grappling with CES' big size and other meetings not incorporating more aspects of what was once the National Show, executives said. With CES "too big, it's too overwhelming," and CTAM is trying new strategies to serve members, CEO Vicki Lins​ said. "In our industry, it peaked a couple years ago, where your CMOs felt they needed to be there" annually, she said of chief marketing officers. Senior Vice President-Advanced Products Angie Britt, who has done a biennial CES tour, said in this "off" year she will do livestreaming and recorded interviews and perhaps demos of video and IoT products. "In a tour, you're taking 40 people through 150,000 of your friends" and that takes time, she said. "The conference is making it more and more challenging to get people on and off the bus at a place where you can let people on and off." CES is committed to ensuring "attendees and exhibitors have a quality experience," responded a spokeswoman for show producer CTA. It restricts attendance to ensure the show "remains easily navigable and that our attendees can find the distinct communities of their choice while experiencing the value of having the full industry represented," she said. "We work closely with the city of Las Vegas and transportation vendors to ease commute times from venue to venue to make the show experience as productive and streamlined as possible." For face-to-face gatherings generally, Lins thinks "the pendulum has swung very far." While "great stuff happened as a result" of past events, she said, "it's harder to have those relationships when you're not together with people." It was good to "right size," she said, but one still needs "those quality moments where you can build relationships, and I don't think you've found it yet." Yet post-INTX, "there wasn't the appetite for finding another big conference," said CTAM Chief Communications Officer Anne Cowan. "The marketplace was weighing in." Though her association had some INTX sessions, she said "the loss of that has been our gain" in some ways, with more coming to CTAM business meetings. In the first year without a major cable show, CableLabs and NCTA put on "The Near Future" event in April in Washington (see 1704270040). An NCTA spokesman declined to comment.

The HDMI Forum announced release of the HDMI Version 2.1 specification, nearly 11 months after it used a January CES news conference to say it expected the spec’s “upcoming” release would take place in Q2 (see 1701040065). HDMI 2.1 supports doubling the frame rates of 4K video to 120 Hz and 8K to 60 Hz, and supports high-dynamic-range platforms that use dynamic metadata, such as Dolby Vision and HDR10+, said Tuesday's announcement.

It isn’t clear whether large platform companies pose a distinct enough threat to merit antitrust action, but more regulation could be an option, said panelists during an American Enterprise Institute discussion Monday. “Some intervention is needed,” said University of Chicago economist Luigi Zingales. The concentration of advertising platforms is probably harmful for the economy, but a government-driven solution “isn’t the right approach,” he said. To evaluate whether there's market dominance, “you need to know whether a person can easily switch between services, and is there a cost to switching,” and in today’s tech market, consumers mostly have options, Zingales said. “What’s happening in Silicon Valley is fantastic,” agreed AEI Director-Economic Policy Studies Michael Strain. “The only thing that matters in antitrust analysis is consumer welfare, whether consumers are benefiting.” Companies like Yahoo and RIM (now BlackBerry) that once were powerhouses no longer pose the same concerns, and have been overtaken by today's platform giants, he said. “It’s foolish to think that it’s impossible the iPhone won’t be replaced by another device in 10 years. And I don’t believe Google has perfected the way to organize the internet,” Strain said. “The barrier to entry is pretty small,” said Ryan Hagemann, Niskanen Center director-technology policy, making the case that a new entrant could challenge established players given the speed of tech innovation. "History is full of giants that eventually die," said Zingales.

British singer-songwriter James Blunt will be the biggest international recording star in years to take the IFA concert stage when he performs Sept. 2 at the IFA Sommergarten outdoor amphitheater at the Messe Berlin fairgrounds to close out the show’s opening weekend, organizers announced Tuesday. Blunt has sold more than 20 million albums globally and his 2005 debut release Back to Bedlam reached No.1 in the U.K., the U.S. and 12 other countries, they said. IFA opens Aug. 31 for a six-day run.

Carriers are choosing fiber over wireless backhaul, but wireless transport may grow, Mobile Experts said in a Friday news release and report. "Leading operators take this position because top mobile operators … have several LTE bands with overlapping plans to upgrade small cells,” said analyst Joe Madden. “They have a long-term view, like a roadmap, and they're not calculating ROI based on a single upgrade.” By 2022, 16 percent of small cells will use wireless transport, predicted Madden. “There is potential growth in wireless transport, as operators are starting to discover the limits of the utopian 'all fiber' deployment.”

Charter Communications and Viacom will partner on co-production of original content and on advanced advertising, under a multiyear extension of their distribution agreement, they said Wednesday. They said some Viacom networks, including BET, MTV and CMT, will move to Charter's Spectrum Select tier, with others remaining on Spectrum Silver or Spectrum Gold tiers. They said co-produced original content will premiere on Charter's platform in the U.S., with Viacom distributing it internationally and in additional domestic markets after Charter's premiere period. They also said the companies would partner on the use of anonymized viewership data and on tackling unauthorized password sharing.

CES will have a few firsts in Las Vegas in January, including new exhibit space for artificial intelligence, a high-tech retail conference and exhibit area, and a design and source marketplace and conference program, said CEO Gary Shapiro at a CES Unveiled news conference in New York Thursday. Also new is expansion to the Monte Carlo Resort & Casino for the Monday night keynote by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, to be in the Park Theater, Jan. 8, at 6:30 p.m., said Karen Chupka, CTA senior vice president-CES and corporate business strategy. The “booming” sports technology industry will have its own zone for the first time in the Sands Convention Center near Hall D, reflecting growth in an industry projected to reach $76 billion by 2020, Chupka said. What was once a market associated with fitness trackers, heart rate monitors and other wearables, has morphed into a larger category involving smart products that enhance athletic performance, fan engagement, and the business of sports, Chupka said. That includes smart arenas, e-sports and e-leagues and a changing role of sponsorships, she said. The sports fan experience will evolve, becoming more immersive through artificial and virtual reality technologies that will be shown at CES, she said. Turner Sports is sponsoring the sports zone, and CES also is partnering with market research company Sports Innovation Lab. The zone will include exhibits, demos e-leagues and two conference tracks -- one targeting sports innovation and the other sports technology, Chupka said. The 2018 CES celebrity ambassador is former NBA player Baron Davis, she announced. Responding to a question on possible security procedure changes at CES hotels, after last month’s mass shooting at a concert outside the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, Chupka said the Las Vegas community is studying whether there are other measures organizers can take, but Las Vegas already has security measures in place such as cameras in the casinos. “Quite frankly, they have a lot of things in place,” she said of Las Vegas, including one of only a few fusion centers in the country, described by the Department of Homeland Security as state and major urban area focal points for the receipt, analysis, gathering and sharing of threat-related information among federal, state, local, tribal, territorial and private sector partners.

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley subpoenaed Google Monday seeking details on how the company collects and uses consumer information data, manages competitors' search results, and provides user disclosures, he said in a Facebook video. “Consumers have a right to know what information Google is gathering,” said the Republican who announced last month he’s challenging Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. Hawley said he’s investigating whether Google violated Missouri’s consumer protection laws, and will look at complaints the company improperly used online content from rivals' websites. Hawley referenced the European Commission's $2.7 billion fine (see 1706270001) for search engine discrimination practices as impetus for his interest. Google hasn't received the subpoena but a spokesman said the company has "strong privacy protections" and continues "to operate in a highly competitive and dynamic environment."

The FCC, in its report on video programming, faces arguments against and for further steps, including a push to ensure online video distributors aren't subject to cable rules. Replies on the 19th annual report were due Thursday. Verizon -- echoing its calls for retransmission rules changes and elimination of the network nonduplication and syndicated programming exclusivity rules (see 1710110016) -- said in docket 17-214 comments posted Monday that legacy cable regulations on OVDs "would be highly inappropriate." Regulation would be contrary to the agency's goal of promoting video competition, it said. Cable "remains uniquely burdened" with antiquated regulations, despite choice and competition, Charter Communications said. It pressed the agency to declare the market highly competitive and eliminate regulations based on a lack of competition, looking for routes to regulatory parity. NCTA said similar in initial comments last month. NCTA now pitched for seeing the set-top box marketplace as filled with rivalry. It said apps, the emergence of devices like Roku and MVPD investment in alternatives to set-tops -- plus the growth of streaming services -- eclipsed set-top use. It said app use came despite Section 629 of the Communications Act, which requires promotion of competition in the set-top market. Predictable pay-TV claims about a broken retrans regime "should be taken with a proverbial grain of salt," since pay-TV providers were complaining about negotiating with TV stations even before retrans fees became substantial, NAB said. It said proposals for negotiation reforms are without merit and contrary to statute, saying the FCC lacks authority over carriage of TV stations' signals without broadcaster consent. The multichannel TV sector is "broken," with major programmers using leverage and must-have networks to impose tying and bundling requirements, indie cable network INSP said. It said the report should conclude independent cable networks are in jeopardy, program carriage rules and enforcement need strengthening, and conglomerate programmers should be barred from bundling and tying. Citing "overwhelming evidence" of sizable video competition, Comcast rejected American Cable Association criticisms of its NBCUniversal's minimum penetration terms for its regional sports networks. It said the agency should declare the area competitive "at all levels."

Voxx extended its membership with the Wireless Speaker and Audio (WiSA) Association, it said Monday. Voxx’s Klipsch brand was a founding member of the WiSA Association, announcing its first wireless multichannel home theater speakers, the Reference Premiere line, at CES 2015. Voxx wants to leverage the relationship and extend WiSA audio technology globally to its 808 Audio, Acoustic Research, RCA, Magnat, Mac Audio and Heco brands, among others, said CEO Pat Lavelle.