The annual FORUM conference of the Cable Television Public Affairs Association (CTPAA) kicked off today in D.C. with a panel of executive heavyweights representing cable operators and programmers. Overall, it was a cordial session in which the only fighting words—from the cable operators—were directed at the telephone companies. With programmers selling their networks to Verizon and AT&T for those companies' new video services, David Zaslav, President of NBC Universal Cable, used humor to sidestep any overt discord with his operator counterparts: “We’re platform agnostic, although you guys are definitely our ‘preferred’ distributor,” he told them. Laughter ensued.

Landel Hobbs, COO of Time Warner Cable, lobbed this shot at Verizon: “We’ve gotten more phone customers while we’ve been on this panel today than Verizon has total video customers in Keller,” he said of Verizon’s much-touted inaugural video market, Keller, Texas. Neil Smit, President & CEO of Charter Communications, the cable provider in Keller, questioned Verizon’s stated customer results there. “What’s being put out by Verizon in Keller isn’t consistent with our data,” he said. “There’s a lot of info being put out as truisms that needs to be debated.”

John Bickham, President of Cable & Communications for Cablevision Systems Corporation, said of Verizon, “I don’t think they will see a return on their investment. Eventually, the results will reveal what’s really going on. Eventually, analysts will ask the tough questions (about Verizon’s Keller experiment), and I think it’s a very tough road ahead for them.”

All panelists—operators, programmers and the moderator, CNBC anchor/reporter David Faber—did agree that Verizon and AT&T have been particularly aggressive and successful in selling their agenda in Washington.

Speaking of D.C., the panelists spent much of the session addressing legislative and regulatory hot buttons a la carte and network neutrality. Not surprisingly, programmers seemed more critical of a la carte than at least one of the operators, but everyone unanimously agreed a la carte shouldn’t be mandated by Washington and that programmers and operators should be allowed to devise a solution together, without government intervention.

“We’ve said for some time it may be a good idea to move toward a la carte. That’s not to say we’d be interested in the government mandating a la carte. But, without a doubt, giving people more choice about what they have in their home is a good strategy,” said Bickham of Cablevision.

Addressing a la carte, Zaslav began, “If you took half of CNBC’s homes away—,” which moderator Faber interrupted, “God forbid! Now you’re scaring me.” Zaslav continued: “—the economic impact would be dramatic and therefore we’d have to charge a lot more money.”

Panelists agreed that government-mandated a la carte would likely push out diverse programming. Zaslav of NBC Universal noted that Internet users tend to practice “self exclusion” of content—visiting only sites that represent their personal partisan political leanings, for instance—and in so doing miss out on a full marketplace of ideas, opinions and education. He said he fears similar self exclusion of TV content would result in a strict a la carte world.

On network neutrality: “Some large businesses are trying to make this a First Amendment discussion, but it’s not that at all; it’s an economic discussion,” opined Hobbs of Time Warner. Added Smits of Charter, net neutrality “is a solution without a problem.”

Earlier, the session began with panelists’ reaction to the conference theme, “Cable at the Crossroads: Shaping Change in a Competitive World.” There was discussion of “crossroads” as an overused term that has been applied to the industry for well more than a decade. Then Hobbs opined, “Actually I think we are at a crossroads and I hope we continue to be at a crossroads. It’s getting more competitive, forcing us to be more innovative.... I look forward to more innovation to come, so I hope each year is a crossroads.”

Of increased competition, Abbe Raven, President & CEO of A&E Television Networks, noted that for cable networks, “Our industry is built on competition. We’re worried about ratings every day.” She added that a competitive differentiator for both programmers and operators is collaboration on a local level and building strong relationships in local communities. “That’s another competitive element our industry has fostered and an advantage that cable has” over the competition.