What Should Top McSlarrow's Priority List?

Cable World, April 4, 2005

CableWORLD asked 10 cable executives to draw up a to-do list for the new NCTA president and CEO.

Jim Robbins, president and CEO, Cox

For the Industry: Three priorities are paramount. 1) With Congress and the FCC, McSlarrow should focus on the advancement of public policy and regulation that recognizes the cable sector as the only viable, fully facilities-based competitor to the incumbent local exchange carriers for IP- enabled services; 2) he should continue to illuminate policy makers and FCC officials, as well as consumers, that the multichannel video marketplace is fully competitive; and 3) NCTA should continue to educate policy makers and consumers on the various ways that cable technology can protect children from unwanted content, as well as unwanted contact via the Internet. Cable operators should keep up the charge in this with appropriate CSR training, bill stuffers, information on the Web and other strategies.

For Cox: NCTA should support the reform of broadcast network abuse of retransmission consent.

Coleman Breland, EVP, sales and marketing, Turner Network Sales

For the Industry: McSlarrow should enlist cooperation across the NCTA board to do a good job self-governing in the areas of indecency and children's programming. Then communicate those efforts to the FCC and concerned parties.

For Turner: As we enter a new era of "branded environments" that extend into enhanced and interactive content as well as VOD, he should garner industrywide acceptance of metrics that reveal the impact to brands.

Bob Rose, EVP, Court TV

For the Industry: McSlarrow should try to slow down Congress and the FCC from reregulating our industry. For example, any regulation of basic cable programming for indecency and violence will have unintended implications on consumers and the industry's creative future and economic growth. Without thoughtful and concentrated efforts by the entire industry, the FCC may be empowered by Congress to adopt measures to protect families in cable and satellite homes from viewing indecent and violent content from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. I care about my kids' viewing as much as any member of Congress, but I have control over their viewing through the set-top box and by monitoring what they watch.

For Court TV: We'd like to compete on a level playing field. Retransmission consent has burdened this industry for years, and I want to help fix the issue. Why do operators pay approximately two to three times Court TV's license fee for retrans networks that garnered exactly the same 0.9HH rating, or even a lower rating than Court TV? We find it stunningly unfair that any provider, cable or DBS, be forced to pay license fees for networks spun off of retransmission consent regulation, without regard to their content or quality, simply because the Big Four broadcasters threaten to prevent subscribers from watching the Super Bowl.

Manish Jha, SVP, ESPN Mobile and President, NAMIC

For the Industry: McSlarrow should focus on growth opportunities for the industry. A key one is to leverage content and brands to increase the adoption of digital services and serve a diverse customer base.

For NAMIC: He should raise awareness of the increasingly multi-ethnic customer base our industry serves. That means supporting NAMIC and other industry organizations so they can become a better people development and business opportunity resource.

Brian Koenig, president, CTHRA, and SVP, human resources, Scientific-Atlanta

For the Industry: By establishing himself as a strong, respected voice for the industry, McSlarrow will build a solid foundation to advance NCTA's initiatives involving consumers, the competitive environment, Congress and the FCC.

For CTHRA: From a human resources perspective, CTHRA wants McSlarrow to use his voice to advocate that people are the priority within the cable industry. By positioning cable as a leading employer at the local and national level, McSlarrow will help companies throughout the industry attract and retain the talent needed to outperform our competition, advance the industry and break new ground in diversity. We encourage McSlarrow and the industry to look to CTHRA as its HR advisor.

Matt Polka, president/CEO, American Cable Association

For the Industry: These aren't popular subjects for the programmer members of the NCTA, but they are subjects that have to get fixed before relations between cable operators and programmers can get better and before Congress steps in to legislate. 1) Retransmission consent: ending broadcast exclusivity; 2) programming: making programming transactions more transparent to Washington and consumers; 3) indecency: end the forced carriage of programming networks on the most widespread level of carriage that causes this problem in the first place; and 4) parity: ensure DBS and the big phone companies have to play by the same rules as cable.

Mike Pandzik, president and CEO, NCTC

For the Industry: The NCTA's top priority should be to step up to the plate with a well-funded, national ad presence on why cable is a better deal than DBS. Only the NCTA is in a position to do this. I'd like to see us develop a new national brand-name identity for cable. (Imagine the national media buy a nickel or a dime per basic sub per month would support!) That's one of the biggest advantages our DBS competitors have--they can spend against a single brand name in every market, and we can't.