NBCU and Sony Transform CES to 'Tech PLUS Content' Convention

The major presence of NBC Universal at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas represents a watershed moment for the television industry. NBC-TV Entertainment president Ben Silverman commented to JackMyers Media Business Report, "the companies here are featuring technologies that mean little without content. How much better are the technology demonstrations that feature NBCU programming compared to the ones with flowers and an ant crawling on a leaf?"

NBCU presented live reports from the convention floor by Brian Williams, Maria Bartiromo, the Today Show's Al Roker and Paul Hochman, Access Hollywood, Telemundo, several NBC station affiliates, CNBC Power Lunch and NBC Sports. American Express, which was a primary underwriter of the NBCU presence, hosted a four hour Iconic Town Hall. More than 120 NBCU executives converged on Las Vegas for a senior management meeting and to reinforce the company's commitment to be a primary content provider for the hundreds of technology companies that are the foundation of CES. Based on the success of NBCU at CES, the company has decided to renew its commitment for the 2009 CES and will again be the "official" broadcast partner of CES, with exclusive rights to broadcast programming live from the floor. (Check out the NBCU CES blog at http://nbcuatces.com/blog.html )

Sony, in addition to an expansive technology demonstration highlighted by the incredible OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) screen TVs with one million to one contrast, hosted a Monday morning event for 200 advertiser and agency executives highlighting Sony Pictures Television domestic programming. SPT president Steve Mosko and Jeopardy host Alex Trebek announced that both Jeopardy Tournament of Champions and the Jeopardy Celebrity Tournament would be produced live from next year's CES, reinforcing the introduction of content as a prominent expansion of the technology convention. Expect other content providers to join NBCU and Sony with a significant presence at future CES shows and expect Yahoo, AOL and other major Internet companies to expand their participation. Sony's advertiser event, in addition to comments by Trebek and Wheel of Fortune co-host Vanna White, featured a one-song performance by legend Tony Bennett (The Best is Yet to Come) and a 15-minute stand-up by Jerry Seinfeld, who was surprisingly in top form considering it was 9 AM Monday.

In addition to the NBCU content that was featured in the demonstrations of advanced technologies by several consumer electronics manufacturers, Showtime and MusicChoice had surprisingly prominent visibility as part of product demonstrations. At last year's CES, one of the major announcements was CBS' involvement with Slingbox. This year, Slingbox was prominently displayed at the DishNetwork booth, (Dish acquired Slingbox in 2007) but at the large Slingbox booth at the Sands Convention Center, Dish was invisible. At the TV Guide booth, executives were not discussing or mentioning the proposed takeover of the company by Macrovision.

Technology highlights of this year's CES were:

· the exceptionally high contrast Sony OLED and Pioneer plasma TV screens that are no thicker than three credit cards;

· Motorola's Z 10 phone with a fully integrated video and audio editing suite;

· and USB memory sticks that enable easy transfer of programming content from kiosks and computers to all other viewing devices. NBCU featured the new Mediaport kiosks that deliver NBCU and other programming for easy download to any memory stick, on a pay-per-download basis. Mediaport is introducing the kiosks to military bases and expects to roll them out to shopping malls and other public places, and will soon be adding Hulu programming to the programming line-up. Both SanDisk, which has content deals with NBCU and CBS, and PortoMedia (featured at the IBM booth) also presented memory stick-based content delivery systems. The memory stick will emerge in the next 12-moths as a primary transfer vehicle for moving programming from device to device, simplifying the download and transfer process.

Intel showed off a new chip that's much smaller than a finger nail, holds 400 million transistors, and will enable rapid development of portable personal MPH (Mobile Pedestrian Handheld) video devices. At Microsoft, attendees were impressed by the "liquid" motion-controlled computer screen that was originally presented by inventor Jeffrey Han of NYU at the TED Conference two years ago. Blu-ray Discs were being heavily promoted by several enthusiastic manufacturers as the de facto winner of the Blu-ray/HD-DVD war, while Microsoft continued to promote HD-DVD without mention of Warner Bros decision to manufacturer DVDs for Sony's Blu-ray format.

Wireless transfer of photo and video images within the home and from cameras to computers was also one of the hot buttons at a CES that was far more focused on advances, growth and continuity than on any major breakthrough technology advances. 802.11 wireless technology is enabling consumers to eliminate all wiring between multiple set-top boxes, television screens and computers. Soon, the cable box itself will disappear. The keynote address of Comcast's Brian Roberts, who shared plans for a standardized cable industry platform, was positively received, especially in comparison to the "flat" keynote by Yahoo!'s Jerry Yang and an "uninspiring" opening presentation by Microsoft's Bill Gates.

CES is as much about personal networking as computer networks, but technologies to advance social networking had virtually no presence except for a virtual business environment presented by IBM. What was lacking in social networking advances at CES was compensated by dinners, parties and late night clubbing. Jay Z's new 40/40 sports bar at the just-opened Palazzo Hotel was packed for Monday's Night's BCS Championship game but completely empty the rest of the week. And although 140,000 people attend CES there was almost no presence of celebrities to draw booth traffic (not necessary), nor were there the typical free cookies, candy, water and goodies that are a convention staple (needed by not offered). Collectors of shopping bags, however, had a field day even though there was very little to fill the bags with.