PHILADELPHIA — Political humor crept into a keynote chat among top cable chief technology officers here the morning after the most-viewed presidential debate in U.S. history.
At the opening general session of Cable-Tec Expo on Tuesday( Sept. 27), Charter Communications executive vice president of engineering and IT Jim Blackley asked Arris chairman Bob Stanzione, the panel moderator, if they could borrow the Clinton-Trump debate format “and just yell over each other — because I want to make faces.”
“So, Jim, you watched the debate last night,” Stanzione said, embracing the opening in a conversation that also included BalanNair, executive VP and chief technology officer at Liberty Global, and Zoran Stakic, executive VP and CTO at Canadian cable provider Shaw Communications.
Blackley replied: “I started out watching it. I couldn’t take it, so I moved to closed captioning, and I couldn’t read it. I moved to Spanish, ’cause I don’t understand it. And then I went to Twitter just to see what people were flashing on it. So it was, for me, fairly painful.”
Deadpanned Stanzione: “I guess many of us are going to become Zoran’s customers in the near future.”
Several in the audience laughed in a quiet, but knowing, way.
