It’s our pleasure to co-host The Cable Show in the nation’s capital this year. It feels like we say this every year, but the pace of change in this business is incredible.
Innovation is occurring here every day and there will be no shortage of demonstrations at this year’s show. CableLabs and the engineers within our businesses never tire of exploring new ways to leverage the powerful broadband infrastructure assets we have built to ensure we continue to exceed the needs of customers.
Large and small cable networks are consistently bringing new content concepts to life with award-winning execution. Customers are engaging via multiplatform viewing when it is convenient for them, marching towards the promise of a personal TV Everywhere experience. At the same time, social media has allowed customers to form virtual living rooms with those who share passion for characters and programs. Personal recommendations, sophisticated and intuitive tablet interfaces and integrated third party content across multiple screens are no longer future state.
In the last year, the industry has partnered to launch Cable WiFi with thousands of active access points today and Connect2Compete, which delivers broadband to low-income families. Both programs widen the incredibly vast web of connectivity that cable has built throughout the country.
Cable operators spent $13 billion in infrastructure upgrades in 2012 to help connect customers to the information they need to learn and work and programmers spend billions of dollars every year creating rich new content that captivates viewers. In addition to the millions of dollars of direct industry economic impact, hundreds of thousands of small and medium businesses across the U.S. use cable voice, data and video solutions to support their operations, a number that continues to rapidly grow.
While we have plenty to be proud of, we must remember that we work in a highly competitive space and our customers are what drive the business. Alternative providers are fighting hard each day to attract the same new subscribers we seek and to lure existing ones away. We must continue to anticipate the needs of the market and remain committed to investment and innovation.
The guiding light of our success and direction must always be our customers and viewers. If we work together to create the content they love and make it easy for them to enjoy it when and where they prefer, we can continue to delight them.
Thanks for joining us this year. Enjoy the show!
Pat Esser, president of Cox Communications, and Abbe Raven, chairman of A+E Networks, are co-chairs of The Cable Show 2013.
