All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
ANAHEIM, California -- Broadband Plus, formerly the Western Cable Show, opened this week with a call to arms from the chairman of the California Cable and Telecommunications Association: Cable companies must "stop the bleeding that's going to DBS (satellite)."
The CCTA chairman, William Rosenthal, introduced Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, who made clear that he viewed video on demand, or VOD, to be the industry's weapon of choice in this battle.
"VOD is a 'wow!'" Roberts said, declaring that a consumer's initial video-on-demand experience is comparable to the first time someone uses a wireless phone.
In November, Comcast launched a VOD service to over 500,000 Philadelphia-area subscribers, joining Time Warner Cable, InSight Communications, Charter Communications and others in aggressively rolling out the technology in their markets.
Video on demand is attractive to cable operators because it requires a fast two-way communication between the set-top box and the central broadcasting plant, which digital cable infrastructure can provide. Satellite, meanwhile, is designed to flow in one direction and lacks an adequate upstream connection. (To communicate with the satellite plant, users have to plug into a phone line.)
Roberts said VOD would allow cable companies to regain their status as television's technology innovators, a distinction he said they have lost to satellite providers.
From all indications at the show, broadcasters are more than ready to unleash VOD.
"We are embracing this," said Fox Cable Networks' Lindsay Gardner, speaking at a VOD breakout session where an overflow crowd stood three rows deep in the back of the room. "We see VOD as more than a nifty tool or even a killer app ... it's part of a power shift (to the user)."
Similarly bullish attitudes dominated a panel discussion with cable programmers before the general session. John Sie, founder of the Starz Encore Group, said "cable has a window of opportunity" to build momentum behind VOD and gain a competitive advantage over satellite.
Sie anticipated that satellite might not be the only business to come under attack from VOD. He said video rental outfits like Blockbuster might suffer, and noted that the amount people spend on renting movies is "money that can be back in cable's pocket."
In an interview, Blockbuster spokesman Randy Hargrove dismissed this scenario. "We certainly do not feel threatened by VOD.... It's always been five years away," Hargrove said.
But according to Andy Addis, Comcast's vice president of marketing, within two years cable's VOD business "will begin to tap into the home video rental market in a pretty significant way."
Addis also said the release windows for home video and video on demand would become aligned. Currently, movies are released to video stores about 45 to 50 days before they become accessible on VOD.
Still, some cable executives worried that video on demand could cause some unforeseen casualties.
"If subscription VOD just becomes a bunch of transactions on a bad interface, do you lose that connection to the (network) brand?" wondered Showtime CEO Matt Blank.
Elsewhere at the show, Lynne Elander of Cox Communications warned: "We're not going to change the economics of television by making on demand available. We need to make on demand a win for advertisers."
Meanwhile, in response to a query about how VOD might change television, Roberts said: "We try not to answer those questions." Instead, he said, the cable industry should take its best shot against satellite and let consumers decide the rest.
For Roberts, and many others, that shot is video on demand.
