by ·Comments Off on CES: Show’s over, nothing to see here

Overflowing ash tray in Las Vegas CES is over for another year. While exhibitor space hasn’t bounced all the way back yet, attendance returned to its pre-recession levels. Its traffic-paralyzing, restaurant-monopolizing, aisle-choking levels. Attendance wasn’t bad enough to make the show experience miserable, but the lines made everything take more time.

Here are a few quick notes from CES:

* CNet’s Best of Show award winner was the Motorola Xoom, an Android-based tablet that doesn’t actually exist yet. As a lovely lady demonstrated it at the Motorola booth, I learned that it’ll run an OS version that isn’t available, may or may not accept an SD or Micro SD card, and doesn’t have its default app set chosen yet. But when it’s finally ready, the Xoom is supposed to have great features.

There is ample precedent for such pre-production awards. In January 2009, CNet’s Best Home Video product from CES was the Dish Network 922 receiver with Sling technology. The 922 barely made it to market before the end of 2009. Turns out that it really is that good, though, so maybe a real Xoom will eventually be worth the wait?

* One of my blog posts won a contest at CES. No, it wasn’t the previous post about CES. It wasn’t anything from this blog. This was a contest run by the non-profit Internet Innovation Alliance, and those folks judged my post there to be better than anything else written at their booth. Woo hoo! (If you want to read Lawrence Lessig’s The Future of Ideas, you can learn how to download a free copy.)

* There was almost nothing about free-to-air satellite TV this year. Tele-Satellite magazine had a booth, although it was unmanned when I stopped by on the show’s last day. (More on that below.) Maybe one or two vendors on the regular show floor showed any equipment. That’s a big change from the days when new FTA set-top boxes would debut at CES.

* Sunday at CES is garbage day. For the first time, I stayed to the final day of the show to see whether exhibitors would dump all of their giveaways to avoid carting them home. Answer: Not very often. The best part was that the lines were short enough to let me see any show at any exhibit. The worst part was that many dealers were closing up early, and most of those remaining were feeling run down after a long show. There was little to suggest the enthusiasm that swirls around the opening of CES.

* I feel sorry for the folks who signed up for CEA’s new Tech Enthusiast program just to visit CES. That program benefit isn’t worth much; readers here know that anyone can get in to see CES for free with only a little work. And worst of all, that admittance is only good on Sunday.

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Todd Weaver, founder of ivi.tvProgram note: This blog post comes to you from the Hub at the NBC Universal booth at CES. Thanks for inviting me!

Todd Weaver, founder and head of ivi.tv, paused after his second panel session here at CES to let us in on what’s up and what’s next with our favorite streaming TV service.

First, and most importantly, Weaver said that the folks in Washington were very receptive to ivi when he visited them a couple of months ago. “All lawmakers want more competition,” he said, and many of them were troubled by the pending NBC-Comcast merger. Interestingly, when the news got out that Weaver going to visit, local broadcasters called to lobby their representatives against ivi.

The FCC was also positive, in its own way, by saying that it wouldn’t take jurisdiction over ivi’s distribution system. “We had great access to all of the commissioners’ staffs,” Weaver said. In general, “It’s going to take years for the government to catch up with what we’re doing.”

The second-most important issue is the status of ivi’s legal challenges. That status seems to be unchanged. The media companies insist on trying their case in New York, where they filed, rather than Seattle, where ivi filed to show that it was not violating copyright law. But the judge in New York wants to wait to see what happens in the Seattle case.

A few more quick notes:

  • ivi’s next market will be Philadelphia, Comcast’s back yard. “We’re just taking the next biggest market in order, but I like the irony.”
  • Biggest surprise at launch: “Consumers wanted to use us on a 50-inch LCD.” ivi plans to start adding 720p HD feeds to some channels soon.
  • Don’t hold your breath waiting for the ivi Apple app. “It’s in legal review.” Which may or may not have anything to do with Apple’s TV partnerships. The Android app should come sooner, then maybe a Roku app.
  • Full DVR functionality should arrive around the end of March. “It will have appropriate pricing,” greater than the 99 cents/month for the current rewind/pause/fast forward.
  • “We expect to be profitable in less than six months.” Woohoo!

by ·Comments Off on What is it like to be at CES?
A CES 2010 booth with lots of TV screens

This 2010 photo of a medium-sized booth at CES hints at what it's like there. Each of those rectangles is a flat‑screen TV. They're all pretty big.

It’s Consumer Electronics Show time again! This will be my fifth CES, but it’s the first when I won’t be there at the opening. I’ve always wanted to see what the exhibit floor looks like as they’re closing up shop (are exhibitors flinging leftover swag to avoid carting it home?), and this is the year I plan to find out.

Even though this blog has pointed out how anyone can get a free ticket to CES, you probably aren’t going this year. If you don’t live near Las Vegas, or you don’t want to spend the travel money, that’s understandable. But if you’ve never been to CES or Comdex or any other truly huge convention, you’re missing out on a unique experience.

Some of the booths are literally stunning. Huge video displays can stretch 100 feet wide. When you come across one of these, you pause to take in the intense visual stimulation. Then you see that several attendees next to you are taking pictures of the display. Trouble is, the booths are too huge and too close together to get a decent photo of such elaborate displays. You just get to remember them.

(The photo with this post is from last year. That’s definitely not the largest video display, but it gives you an idea of the busy aisles, the soft booth carpeting, the elaborate presentation, and folks trying to take pictures of it.)

Some large booths stage periodic seminars (more like infomercials) about their favorite products. Some bring in celebrities to sign autographs for long lines of fans. (Hey! I got my photo taken with Stan Lee last year!) There’s a large, loud area for vendors of automotive add-ons. Many exhibitors will give you a pen or a bag or some other small memento, and there are lots of drawings for real prizes.

Ever been to a casino? The slot machines all have tall, winking displays, melodic sounds, and occasional electronic shouting. (Wheel! Of! Fortune!) Well, after a few hours at CES, I often drop in at the Hilton casino next door to relax. It’s much quieter and calmer than the show. That should tell you something.

If you are coming to CES this year, please be sure to read my earlier convention survival guide, and you might be able to find me at the CES Tweetup Friday night. If not, consider making plans for next year. CES is a hoot!

by ·Comments Off on More signs that broadcast TV will stay healthy

Broadcast TV cameraLast year, I wrote (here and here) about the way that TV video systems were changing, and that TV broadcasting’s future was unsettled. This week, there are several signs that good old fashioned broadcast TV might do pretty well for a while.

Most recently, the National Association of Broadcasters launched a site promoting The Future of TV. Much of the site promotes mobile DTV, of which I’m still skeptical. The NAB talks about getting mobile DTV added to cell phones, but they’re having trouble even getting a $1 FM radio chip added to cell phones. Standalone devices still look pricy, although I hear that the Consumer Electronics Show will include some battery-powered regular and mobile DTV sets. I wouldn’t mind having something like that in the basement when a storm rolls through.

Speaking of storms, a Rasmussen poll released this week (and quoted here) said that over half of us still rely on local broadcast TV as our primary source for weather information. That’s exactly the edge that a local station has over anyone else; it can broadcast whatever is important and immediate to local viewers.

While those are positive signs for local broadcast stations, the topper came in a TV Business Report article which described a new Moody’s Investors Service report. Moody’s analyzed all aspects of TV viewing, and when it came to locals, Moody’s saw an advantage that no one can match. Local stations might continue to lose viewers, but they “will still generate a sizeable share of local advertising dollars as the content will continue to generate the largest audience.”

In other words, don’t fixate on the audience numbers, think about the advertisers. If you’re a local restaurant or car dealer, where can you get exposure to more customers than through local broadcast TV? Certainly not through the local newspaper with its dwindling readership.

So even if advertisers are paying for 80% of the audience local stations had five years ago, there’s still no better way for them to attract local customers. As long as that holds true, broadcast TV stations should be just fine.

by ·Comments Off on My First Rule of Programming strikes again

BBC America LogoLong-time readers might remember my First Rule of TV Programming: No matter what niche a pay-TV channel initially occupies, as time goes on, it will become more and more like all the other channels. It might start as the Chess Network, but by Year Five, it’ll be running old sitcoms and reality shows.

It’s easy to find examples of this rule in action. The Game Show Network became GSN and de-emphasized old game shows. TV Land, which started with classic TV shows, added shows about old TV shows, then added original sitcoms that had nothing to do with old TV shows. The Sci-Fi Channel became SyFy and added pro wrestling. The Nashville Network started with country music, then became TNN and added pro wrestling, then became Spike and added reruns of Star Trek and CSI. The History Channel runs reality shows. You get the idea.

(I pause here to give a shout out to the lone exception to this rule: Turner Classic Movies. It started later than American Movie Classics, but as AMC strayed away from that shared vision of commercial-free classic movies, TCM has expanded on it. TCM is one of my favorite channels.)

Anyway, from the logo at the top of this post, you can guess the latest channel to embrace this rule. BBC America has hired a vice president for its new original programming division.

This is particularly annoying because BBC America holds exclusive US rights to all BBC content. It’s the main reason why you can’t get the BBC channels anywhere in America. The BBC already produces more content than BBC America can show, yet the channel already pads its schedule with movies, The X-Files, and Star Trek. (At least it hasn’t picked up pro wrestling. Yet.)

Maybe if we’re lucky, BBC America will follow the path of several other channels and spin off a second channel that is pretty close to how it used to look. (Think Cartoon Network and Boomerang, or MTV and VH1 Classic.) That would buy us a couple of years until the new channel falls victim to my Rule all over again.