Eyeing Changing Tech, CTAM Boosting Non-Cable Input, as Cable Industry Lacks Tentpole Annual Meeting

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.