Things are in full Vegas swing as the Cable Show kicks off. In one of yesterday's more interesting panels, Turner’s Coleman Breland offered an apt analogy for the dynamics of the cable industry. Keeping things interesting and lighthearted in a potentially tense session on programming which touched on new platforms, the threat and opportunity of the Internet, and challenges to traditional revenue models for content, Breland compared cable companies (programmers and operators) to members of a rock band who find themselves struggling to get along after reaching uber-success.

He explained how musicians in a rock band start out creating music together, working together to achieve success, and also partying together. In the beginning, the members of the band aren’t necessarily that good at what they do individually, but together they do something that resonates. They achieve success, and over time they become better at their craft. With success comes the pressure of expectations for continued success, and individual members become restless and want to try new things. He suggested the importance of the band members allowing their colleagues the room to grow. The point, he said, was that the members of the cable industry had been very successful together and could continue to be so. He pointed to the Stones and the Beatles and noted that the Stones were the model since they were still making lots of money together.

BIZARRE MARKETING IDEA #1
You expect clever and interesting marketing tactics at The National Show, but Mav TV has taken the cake. Or, I guess, delivered it. In the men's restrooms, the network has installed talking urinal cakes. Yes, I said TALKING URINAL CAKES. You know, those things that are supposed to keep bathrooms fresh. Every time a restroom patron, shall-we-say, visits, the urinal replies with a blurb about Mav TV. It's the first time I've gone and gotten a reply. Anyway, this tactic raises some big questions. Who thought of this? Who wants to change the cakes? Where did they find a company to do this? Could this be a metaphor for what the industry is doing to their channel? You can thank me now for sparing you the accompanying photo. Tuesday, 1:35 p.m.

In a panel moderated by Rafe Needleman of CNET Networks, Inc., the overwhelming feeling was that online gaming is a cable technology here to stay, one just waiting for the correct platform to really take off. The greatest frustration gamers face in playing intense first-person shooter games against opponents over the internet is latency, the pause or “lag” created by lost packets and slow transmission. Many networks have tailored the architecture of their networks to reduce latency, and some have added a higher tier of service to their network offerings that increase data rates specifically for gaming. Cablevision is one such company, offering Optimum Online Boost, a service that increases transmission speed to up to 30 Mbps downstream and 2 Mbps upstream.

Another issue facing developers of online games is the idea of in-game purchases. The idea of perhaps purchasing, with real world money, a better weapon in a video game has met both philosophical and logistical opposition. While many gamers see the idea of buying their way through a game as cheating, developers see it as a humongous source of potential revenue, where financial commitment determines the level of involvement in a game.

“A very successful game would be one that is free to play, and the amount of money spent determines the amount of involvement, with a billing system that makes sense with microtransactions,” said Eugene Evans of Mythic Entertainment.Mythic Entertainment is the creator of the Dark Age of Camelot, a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game. Issues with billing present a challenge for both developers and operators to overcome, as credit card companies in the U.S. aren't set up to handle a large number of small transactions, and neither consumer nor operator would enjoy a six-page cable bill listing hundreds of one-dollar purchases. The task at hand remains finding an efficient and streamlined method of processing numerous small (less than $5) transactions per user over a period of several days or months.

Pat Esser, President, Cox Communications

As Cox’s hometown readies the welcome mat for The National Show this weekend, my excitement level about the state of our industry is extremely high. However, so is my level of impatience about the undue influence the telcos are exacting on the regulatory and legislative agendas.

Thanks to the formidable force of the telcos’ noise machines and press release factories, I fear an inordinate amount of time and effort are being devoted to the regulatory environment at a time when far more important priorities should be taking precedence. The shall-we-say “aspirational” claims of AT&T, Verizon and others frequently don’t correlate with reality, yet still often weigh disproportionately on matters regulatory and legislative.

I’m so glad that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and several FCC commissioners are coming to Atlanta for the show, and I welcome our opportunity to demonstrate to them the amazing progress Cable is making in delivering competition and fulfilling consumer demands. I hope they take from Atlanta a renewed sense that a balanced combination of minimal regulation and a free marketplace remains the ideal way of encouraging competition, furthering technological innovation, and empowering consumers.

So this is it, colleagues: our prime opportunity to re-shape the discussion, to demonstrate the power of Cable, and to shift attention and action back to substantive matters. And back to ensuring a fair, level playing field where the consumer—not telco bluster—is the power broker that determines which companies and products are successful, and which are not. For those of you making the trip to town, welcome. Enjoy Atlanta!