Las Vegas — September’s 67th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards drew 11.3 million viewers. The Jan. 7 presentation of the 68th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmys event at CES drew a couple hundred people, with not a TV camera in sight.
But if you ask Bob Mauro, president of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS; which distributes the Daytime Emmys), the latter is just as important as the former. And maybe more so.
“Without the technology [side] we don’t have the entertainment side,” Mauro told B&C at CES. “The way technology has grown in entertainment, and [with] the way it influences our everyday lives, it’s important we recognize the impact these companies and people have on our industry.”
The tech and engineering awards honored everything from the very first TV camera technology, to the latest sports replay offerings, to those behind the creation of fiber optic cable. But it was Tony Werner, president of technology and product for Comcast Cable, who dominated the discussion (and the event program, more than half of which was dedicated to him).
This year, the Academy awarded Werner with its Lifetime Achievement Award, a nod to his decades of work at Comcast, Liberty Global, AT&T and Rogers Communications, overseeing industry-wide tech advancements along the way.
“I will be accepting the award on behalf of an incredible industry and all of my wonderful colleagues who have worked tirelessly to make it what it is today,” Werner said ahead of the event.
Also honored at the Technology & Engineering Emmys event:
• IET, Telcon (Alcatel Lucent-Submarine Networks) and Siemens were given a nod for their work on the “Concept of Opto-Electric Transduction,” the “photoelectric” basis for camera technology used today.
• Evertz, EVS and FOR-A were honored collectively for their work in the category “Live Production Technology Beyond HD to Achieve Non-Interpolated Video for Instant Replay.”
• The broadcast news tech collective Media Object Server (MOS) Group was awarded for its work in facilitating simpler collaboration among news organization, via its open protocol solution.
• Invidi Technologies and Visible World earned recognition for their work in the targeted ad space.
• Corning and Bell Labs/Western Electric (now OFS) was honored for their work in the invention and deployment of fiber optic cable.
• IBM Corp. and Technicolor-owned post production house Laser Pacific were awarded for their work in automated supply chain solutions for broadcast content.
