RELATED:CES 2016: What’s Trending in Las Vegas
► Monday, Jan. 4, 2 p.m. PT: Top Tech Trends
Shawn DuBravac, the CTA’s chief economist and senior director of research, will once again provide a valuable projection into what’s buzzing in CE while sharing the organization’s latest sales data. Last year, he predicted that global CE spending would drop slightly — by about 1% — to $1.05 billion from the record levels seen in 2013.
► Tuesday, Jan. 5, 3 p.m. PT: Dish Network’s annual press event
The big question heading in: Who’s going to be banging the drum and stirring the on-stage excitement now that former CEO Joe Clayton is retired? Regardless, expect to hear what’s on the tech and service docket for Dish and Sling TV, its OTT TV service for cord-cutters, which made its splashy debut at last year’s event in Sin City.
► Wednesday, Jan. 6, 8:30 a.m. PT: Keynote with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings
For years, Netflix has been a key component of the CES mix, usually tying itself to announcements from its vast array of CE partners, including all of the world’s top TV makers. But this year, the company will take center stage, and speculation will run wild about what kind of earth-shattering announcement Netflix will be able to muster. Netflix already offers a steadily growing library of 4K content, is on all of the CE devices that matter and is the world’s largest provider of OTT SVOD services. Curious minds and geeks around the world are wondering what Hastings has up his sleeve.
► Thursday, Jan. 7, 4:30 p.m. PT: Keynote with YouTube chief business officer Robert Kyncl
2015 was another big year of change and innovation for the world’s biggest and baddest video streamer. In October, it rolled out Red, a subscription-based service that runs $9.99 per month, but has not generated a lot of buzz since. That could change this week if YouTube takes its video strategy to the next level, following reports that it has been in talks with studios and other content providers about licensing TV shows and movies for its platform. Like Amazon, which recently locked in distribution deals with Starz and Showtime, is YouTube another “virtual” MVPD in the making?
