Anyone who still subscribes to the adage that nice people finish last hasn’t met Nomi Bergman. 

Bergman has been shining her light and leadership on a family legacy that’s seen her serve early executive stints at Advance/Newhouse (in publishing and cable) and Time Warner Cable; as president of Bright House Networks, the sixth-largest U.S. cable operator at the time of its 2016 merger with Charter Communications; and in her current role as an adviser on the evolution of the cable infrastructure she’s been championing since day one.

“The continued innovation of our infrastructure has enabled us to deliver products and services to our customers that we might not have dreamed of during earlier days,” she said.

Also: Welcome to the 30th Anniversary of the ‘B+C’ Hall of Fame

A self-described “rational optimist,” Bergman has “a lot of hope for the remarkable things a healthy team can create by working collaboratively together, staying close to customers, falling in love with our craft and aiming high.”

It’s a descriptor shared by Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts, a decades-long ally and friend who counts Bergman as a Comcast board member.

“Nomi is a force in telecommunications — having been at the forefront of many trends in media and technology over the last several decades,” Roberts said. “She is unique for her knowledge, passion and unwavering optimism. It has been a privilege to have her great insights on our board, and we are lucky that Nomi’s leadership and vision are helping to shape our industry.”

That vision began in the early ’90s with Bergman joining her father Robert Miron in the cable business, initially consulting on back-end systems including the streamlining of disparate billing systems.  

In 1998, she was on the ground in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the launch of Road Runner, TWC’s initial cable-modem internet service. 

“It really felt like a historical moment,” said the mother of three daughters. “The fact that plants could be two-way … it was huge. People didn’t believe it, and they didn’t think they needed it because they thought dial-up was fine.”

Bergman ascended to perhaps her most notable career highlight to date — helming, along with her father and brother, Steve Miron, Bright House Networks and its 8,500 employees serving 2.2 million customers.

“The opportunity to build a multibillion-dollar brand, and to build leadership teams and cultivate a culture of care by authentically engaging and listening to employees and customers and learning how to best show up to serve them was just incredible,” she said. 

Steve Miron, also a 2022 Hall of Fame honoree, said it’s been a career highlight to work so closely with his sister: “She’s the most driven person I know; she’s got a great strategic head. She always knows what I’m thinking, and I always know what she’s thinking … and 90% of the time it’s the same thing.”

Among notable customer-first initiatives, Bergman launched a campaign called Just Say Yes, plastering signage in call centers and ensuring employees knew the company had their backs as they super-served customers. Then came the Friends Campaign, centered on the premise that Bright House would pull out all the stops to treat its customers like family and close friends, whether that meant bringing needed food to house calls or technicians working after hours to ensure a student could take an online test. “It was a magical time,” she said.

“Nomi has made a career out of ‘saying yes’ to customers, colleagues, and partners who need her,” said Peter Stern, a VP at Apple who worked with Bergman at Time Warner Cable from 2006 to 2014. “She has enriched countless people’s lives with her insight, integrity, and boundless generosity.”

Sharing Industry Pride

Throughout her career, Bergman has led with a genuine love for the industry, and for the people who make it run. “I look at the infrastructure our industry provided during the pandemic, and I feel such humility and pride,” she said. 

What’s on the mind of the avid adventure traveler these days? Regulation and opportunity. 

Aside from Comcast, Bergman is on boards of Black & Veatch, Visteon and her alma mater, the University of Rochester. She is also on the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council. For Advance, she’s a board member of 1010data and Hawkeye360, which enables the observation of RF signals from space.

 “I love the space industry,” Bergman said. “There are a lot of ties to the cable industry.” ■

The Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame -- the premier industry event paying tribute to the pioneers, innovators and stars of the electronic arts -- returns with a full, in-person live gala celebrating the event’s 30th anniversary. The Hall of Fame celebration will take place at New York’s Ziegfeld Ballroom on Thursday, April 14, 2022.

The new B+C Hall of Fame inductees join the ranks of more than 400 honorees previously recognized by Broadcasting+Cable magazine. The new Hall of Fame inductees (alphabetically) are:

Emily Barr, president & CEO, Graham Media Group.

Nomi Bergman, president, Advance/Newhouse Investment Partnership.

Brandon Burgess, former president & CEO, ION Media. 

Susanne Daniels, global head of original content, YouTube.

Savannah Guthrie, co-anchor and chief legal correspondent, TODAY & NBC News.

Hoda Kotb, co-anchor and co-host, TODAY & TODAY with Hoda & Jenna.

Pearlena Igbokwe, chairman, Universal Studio Group.

Leo MacCourtney, president, Katz Television Group.

Dan Mason, chairman emeritus, The Broadcasters Foundation of America, and past president and CEO, CBS Radio.

Steve Miron, chief executive officer, Advance/Newhouse Partnership.

Steven R. Swartz, president and CEO, Hearst.

Curtis Symonds, president, HBCU GO TV/Allen Media Group.

ESPN, Iconic Network. 

While the Hall of Fame previously has inducted iconic shows, ESPN is the first network to be admitted into the fold. “It’s a tremendous honor for ESPN to receive the first Iconic Network Award from The Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame,” Jimmy Pitaro, chairman, ESPN and Sports Content, told B+C/Multichannel News. “When we launched in 1979, ESPN immediately created an indelible bond with sports fans by matching their passion. Thank you to the thousands of dedicated ESPN employees who, over four decades, have continued to create a non-stop immersive sports experience.”

“The Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame has always been one of the entertainment industry’s signature events,” said Bill McGorry, chairman of the Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame. “In a year like no other, we are beyond thrilled to be able to welcome back our community with a star studded live 30th Anniversary gala that will surely be a night to remember. With great anticipation, we look forward to celebrating together in April.”

“Each year we are completely awed by our Hall of Fame honorees and this class of 2021 raises the bar yet again,” B+C Editor-in-Chief Bill Gannon said. “This class is particularly noteworthy for the visionary and innovative leaders who have changed the industry both before and during the pandemic. The Hall of Fame is thrilled to add these exceptional individuals to the prestigious classes of honorees that have come before them.”

“Broadcasting+Cable’s Hall of Fame is one of the most important events in broadcasting,” Jim Thompson, president of Broadcasters Foundation of America, said. “Their generosity in donating a portion of the proceeds to support the mission of the Broadcasters Foundation of America is admirable, and we cannot thank them enough. Over the past 30 years, the Hall of Fame has contributed more than $700,000 to help our fellow broadcasters who have been hit by debilitating illness, accident, or disaster. We are grateful for the continued support of the Hall of Fame. With their help, we can continue to provide aid to our colleagues in desperate need.”

Since the event’s inception, a portion of the proceeds goes to the Broadcasters Foundation of America, a charitable organization that provides financial grants to those of our industry colleagues and their families who are in acute need due to critical illness or accident, advanced age, death of a spouse or other serious misfortune. In addition, the event benefits The Paley Center for Media, a non-profit organization leading the discussion on the social significance and advancement of television, radio and emerging platforms for the professional and media-interested public.

For sponsorship, table, ticket and advertising information, please contact Jessica Wolin at  jessica.wolin@futurenet.com or 212-685-4233.

For more information please visit the B+C Hall of Fame website.

Follow the Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame at #BCHOF2021. ■

For the first time, the lights of Broadway will shine on The Cable Center’s newest Cable Hall of Fame class.

Five executives and a groundbreaking television show — AMC’s drug-dealer drama Breaking Bad — will share the stage of New York’s Ziegfeld Ballroom on Wednesday, April 4, for the 2018 Cable Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Lending more star wattage to the festivities will be host Carla Hall, a popular cooking personality from ABC’s The Chew and Bravo’s Top Chef and Top Chef America.

Among the industry figures set to be enshrined are Nomi Bergman, president, Advance/Newhouse; John Bickham, president and chief operating officer, Charter Communications; Balan Nair, president and CEO, Liberty Latin America; Richard Plepler, chairman and CEO, HBO; and Neil Smit, vice chairman, Comcast Corp.

June Travis, a former NCTA executive, will also be presented with the group’s Bresnan Ethics in Business Award. Breaking Bad creator, head writer and executive producer Vince Gilligan will accept Hall of Fame honors on the AMC show’s behalf.

Nomi Bergman
President, Advance/Newhouse

Second-generation cable executive Nomi Bergman didn’t intend to get into the family business. After graduating from the University of Rochester with a degree in statistics and economics, Bergman went to work as a systems consultant in Arthur Andersen & Co.’s consulting division. Bergman’s father, Robert Miron, ran the Newhouse cable companies, and a cousin at parent company Advance/Newhouse encouraged her to join the larger organization’s internal consulting group. As an analyst with Advance/Newhouse, Bergman worked on instituting best practices and operating efficiencies among the company’s publications and cable divisions.

In the late 1980s, her group installed new accounting systems at company properties. Noticing that the various cable operations used a variety of billing systems, she recommended integrating them. She took charge of what would be a two-year project involving 50 system conversions. She became a cable nomad, setting up camp in each Newhouse location to oversee successive rollouts. The odyssey was an immersion in MSO field operations that convinced Bergman to make her professional home in cable at Advance/Newhouse. (The company formed a partnership with Time Warner Cable in 1995.)

Bergman adapted quickly to the architecture side of the cable business. Among her most satisfying achievements was being part of the launch of RoadRunner, Time Warner’s broadband internet service. “Being a part of reinventing the purpose of a cable system … re-architecting service delivery, growing the team, was beyond exciting,” she said.

Bergman helped launch sixth-ranked MSO Bright House Networks in 2003 and served as the company’s president from 2007-16. Today, as senior executive officer with Advance/Newhouse companies, she focuses on corporate development and strategic partnerships.

The busy executive and mother of three daughters has been a force in a number of cable and community support organizations, and she remains actively involved with several. Her work on the board of Adaptive Spirit grew out of a mother-daughter activity that became an annual tradition. “Watching [U.S. Paralympic Ski Team members] embrace their disabilities as their star qualities and become exceptional athletes is incredibly inspiring,” Bergman said. “It’s a powerful metaphor for us all — about how to live our lives and be our best selves.”

She believes in the value of kindness in all aspects of life. “People trust kind and caring leaders,” she said, and feels these qualities helped her to cultivate dedicated fearless, and knowledgeable teams who felt empowered to win.

John Bickham
President and Chief Operating Officer, Charter Communications

John Bickham’s career has taken him from the utility industry in Texas to the cable C-suite in Connecticut. Born in Corpus Christi, he graduated from Texas A&I — now part of the Texas A&M system — but had no idea where he would go from there. He landed at utility holding company Houston Industries, where he helped design and build coal-fired generating stations. In 13 years with the company, he was involved in utility regulation at the national and state levels. In the mid-1980s, the holding company became interested in cable and went into partnership with ATC. Bickham’s accidental entry into the cable business was the start of a long, successful career.

Compared to the staid world of utilities, Bickham found cable “an immature business, unsophisticated from a business planning and construction standpoint. It was different, it was fun, and you were a lot closer to the cash register.” Thirty years ago, “who knew the business was going to be what it is today? Today … we sell services that every home and business needs.” In 1986, he co-founded KBLCOM, a cable company that partnered with ATC and owned cable systems in eight states. He left as president and chief operating officer of KBLCOM to operate Time Warner Cable’s Los Angeles division, and advanced to executive vice president of TWC, overseeing the company’s operations in North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas.

Bickham moved to Cablevision Systems in 2004 as president of cable and communications. He joined Charter as COO in 2012 and added president to his title in 2016 when the company’s acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks closed. In the cable industry, local operations continue while the owners change; at Charter, Bickham has gotten reacquainted with cable systems that he previously led at KBLCOM.

The father of two grown daughters, Bickham enjoys spending time with his four-year-old grandson. And he travels the world in pursuit of game birds — to England, Spain and South America, as well as in the U.S.

Bickham advises the industry’s future leaders to take every opportunity to learn the different aspects of the business, especially as companies grow and jobs become more tightly focused. “Don’t limit yourself,” he urged. “Don’t ever get bored with what you’re doing. Move around in your company; experience different things.”

Breaking Bad
Television Drama Series, AMC, Vince Gilligan, creator

Only on cable could a series that starts with a cancer diagnosis and continues into the darkest corners of the methamphetamine industry find a home. Breaking Bad broke new ground in television drama and demonstrated the possibilities of innovative storytelling.

The series premiered on AMC in 2008 and ended in 2013. It tells the story of Walter White, a New Mexico chemistry teacher who, with two years left to live and a desire to secure his family’s financial security, becomes a powerful meth manufacturer.

Series creator Vince Gilligan envisioned an approach that had never been tried in series television: a “show about change” that began with a definite end point in view. Gilligan is a TV fan who streams shows from the 1950s and ‘60s and observed, “The thing TV has done very well is tell an indefinite story — a story that can go on for 20 years [a la Gunsmoke or NCIS]. And the way to do that, from a writer’s point of view, is not to put the characters through too many personal changes … I figured stasis had been tried with great success for 50 years, and something more dynamic in terms of character would be interesting. But that meant it couldn’t last indefinitely.” Gilligan was well aware that the concept of a finite series would be difficult to sell. “That’s why I’m still amazed that Sony and AMC signed on. … You don’t want to be told from the get-go, ‘This thing probably won’t last long enough for you to make your money back.’ ”

Not only does Walter White change, but unlike other TV heroes or anti-heroes, he changes for the worse, as the series title suggests. Legend has it that Gilligan pitched his idea to AMC as “turning Mr. Chips into Scarface.” Another unusual approach: in the moral universe of Breaking Bad, actions have consequences. Ultimately, characters reap what they sow, and nobody gets away with anything.

Gilligan believes television drama continues to change, and he hopes it will continue to pursue shows designed for more than the same demographic sweet spot. Above all, he wants writers to be bold. “Don’t copy off your neighbor’s exam,” he said. “Don’t pay too much attention to the stories other folks are telling; tell a story that excites you.”

Balan Nair
President and CEO, Liberty Latin America

“My life is 95% luck,” said Balan Nair. “Making the most of opportunities takes a little bit of skill, but to get those opportunities [takes luck]. I’m a very lucky man.” What Nair calls luck, others might see as destiny.

In his 11 years with Liberty Global, Nair has advocated focusing on software as the driver of cable’s evolution and he’s met the challenge of harmonizing products, services, workforce and networks across multiple countries, languages and regulatory environments. Named CEO of Liberty Latin America late last year, he is now focused on high-potential markets in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Nair grew up in Malaysia, coming to the U.S. in 1985 to study electrical engineering at Iowa State University. He met his wife at Iowa State — an event he believes was the greatest stroke of luck in a fortunate life. He began his career working on high-voltage power transmission, and discovered an aptitude for writing software. His wife worked at telephone company USWest in Iowa, and when she was transferred to Minneapolis, he followed and found work at a power research company. When another USWest transfer came up, this time to Denver, Nair switched from power to telco, and joined USWest himself. In more than 12 years with the company and its successor, Qwest Communications International, he rose up the leadership ladder to become chief information officer and chief technology officer.

With extensive telco experience under his belt, Nair decided to move on to the fast-growing internet world. He joined AOL as chief technology officer, overseeing technology, IT and network operations. The Nairs left Denver for AOL headquarters in Washington, D.C. Given his experience, Nair was well-positioned for an industry that saw its future in both areas. Liberty Global came calling in 2007, and the family happily returned to Denver.

As a cable industry newcomer, Nair saw a huge opportunity. He “immediately saw the advantage cable had over any other telecommunications business. We had better networks, better platforms and we were better suited for the transition to a software world. We also have a perpetual entrepreneurial spirit. The founding members [of the industry] are still involved, and our second-generation managers were trained by founders. That is very special.”

Richard Plepler
Chairman and CEO, HBO

It’s safe to assume that Richard Plepler is the only high-ranking cable executive whose entry into the industry came about through a chance meeting with a U.N. ambassador at a Chinese restaurant. To start at the beginning: Plepler grew up in the ’60s in a politically active home where engaged, informed citizenship was paramount. “At the dinner table, you had to have read The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and you had to be prepared to talk about the world,” he recalled.

After graduating from Franklin & Marshall College, he went to work for Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.). From Dodd, he learned about building consensus and the notion that people can disagree without being disagreeable. “I think that informed the way I began to think about business, and I think it informs my leadership style,” Plepler said.

Plepler next went on to work for a small media-consulting firm that specialized in crisis management. After a year, brimming with confidence at 26, he started his own strategy and production firm, RLP International, which would make films to help countries that wanted to improve their images. Cheerfully acknowledging his own youthful hubris, Plepler is quick to point out that he was RLP International’s sole employee.

His big break came at a Chinese restaurant in New York in 1988, where then-Israeli ambassador to the U.N. Benjamin Netanyahu happened to be dining. “I went over to introduce myself, and I said, ‘You have a huge problem in the U.S.’ The first intifada had broken out, and Israel was being viewed negatively. I told Netanyahu, ‘This needs to be put in a larger context, sir, and my company, RLP International, knows how to do that.’ And by some miracle, he said, ‘Come see me.’ ” The result of their subsequent meeting was a well-received documentary for PBS that explained the complexity of Israel’s situation. A call from HBO’s Michael Fuchs soon followed, inviting Plepler to join the network in 1992 as communications chief.

“From my first day [at HBO], I always felt like I was where I belonged,” Plepler said. “The people I’ve observed who have done the best feel they’re in the environment where they’re meant to be. Be in the place where you feel passionate about the work, about the mission.”

Neil Smit
Vice Chairman, Comcast Corp.

Growing up on a farm in Connecticut, Neil Smit didn’t have a clear idea of what he wanted to be when he grew up, but he knew what he didn’t want to do. Farming was at the top of that list; construction was second. “My father was in construction, and I didn’t necessarily want to be the second generation in the construction business,” he said. “I wanted to carve my own path.” He entertained notions of becoming an astronaut, but after graduating from Duke University, he ended up on sea, air and land as a member of the legendary Navy SEALs.

From his five-and-a-half years as a SEAL, Smit learned important lessons that he applied to his subsequent business career. “The first thing you learn in SEAL teams is, it’s all about teams,” he said. “If you’re not pulling together, you’re pulling apart, and you do everything together as a team. The other thing is that you communicate very directly from day one. And finally, you’re always developing your skills, your people, and you have to keep building new capabilities. More than anything, it’s about the teamwork.”

When Smit retired from the Navy as a lieutenant commander, he worked in hostage negotiations before moving into the corporate world. He held leadership roles at Nabisco and Pillsbury, and then moved to AOL and MapQuest. Along the way, he got to know Paul Allen, who invited him to join Charter Communications as CEO in 2005. Cable appealed to him. “The day-to-day diversity of things that we had to deal with was interesting,” he recalled. “We were in the internet business, the phone business, the video business, and it was an ever-changing environment.” Another plus: “The quality of the people was very high; there’s still an entrepreneurial spirit in the industry,” he said.

Smit joined Comcast Cable as president and CEO in 2010. He now serves as a vice chairman of Comcast Corp., working to develop future technology- oriented business opportunities. Active in his community, he recently left the board of trustees of Philadelphia Children’s Hospital, and continues his work with the board of visitors for the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. And his adventurous spirit remains strong. He enjoys boating, water sports and skiing, and recently took up ice driving with his son in northern Canada. “I’ll try about anything,” he said.

Bresnan Award Recipient

June E. Travis

June Travis retired from the cable television industry in late 1999. Since 1994, she had served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of the National Cable Television Association, the industry’s principal trade association based in Washington, D.C.

Prior to joining the NCTA, Travis was president and chief operating officer of Rifkin & Associates, a Denver-based cable television operator. Before that, she served in several executive positions at American Television and Communications, the predecessor to Time Warner Cable.

Recalling the days when cable was a much smaller business, Travis said the industry’s ethical core was apparent in the relationships between its leaders. The early entrepreneurs “were very competitive with one another, but if attacked from the outside, they circled the wagons and supported one another. The collegiality was palpable.”

Starting her cable career as a secretary, Travis noted the admirable leadership qualities she saw practiced by industry role models. “I kept thinking, ‘Gee, if I ever get into management, that’s how I would like to manage, that’s how I would like to be involved in the community, that’s how I would like to give back.’ ”

Travis has served as an officer and board member of a number of cable television industry boards, including CommScope, NCTA (now NCTA: The Internet & Television Association), C-SPAN, Cable in the Classroom, TeleCorps and Women in Cable (now Women in Cable Telecommunications). She chaired the industry’s political action committee, CablePAC, for nine years. She said such organizations made a tremendous difference to the industry’s employees.

She has been active in a number of Colorado organizations including the Greater Denver Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, the Colorado Forum, the Colorado Women’s Forum, the National Jewish Center, Inter-Faith Community Services, Young Americans Center for Financial Education and the Dumb Friends League. She recently stepped down as chairman of the board of the Daniels Fund but remains on that board and also serves as a trustee for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Travis believes in business leaders’ responsibility to their communities. “It’s huge,” she said. “And it pays back a hundred-fold. If you are genuinely in the community, not for the recognition, but truly caring, and participating, and supporting the community, you can’t buy that kind of customer respect.”

The Cable Center announced its 2018 Cable Hall of Fame class, a list of industry luminaries from the cable programming and operations  sectors that will be inducted during the 21st annual Cable Hall of Fame celebration on April 4 at New York City’s Ziegfeld Ballroom.

RELATED: Cable Center picks NYC site for Hall of Fame ceremonies

The honorees are: 

• Nomi Bergman, Senior Executive, Advance/Newhouse
• John Bickham, President and Chief Operating Officer, Charter Communications
• Jarl Mohn, President and CEO, NPR
• Richard Plepler, Chairman & CEO, HBO
• Neil Smit, Vice Chairman, Comcast Corporation

The honorees were chosen based on their leadership, entrepreneurship and innovation in media. Since 1998, 127 leaders have been inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame.

“We are thrilled to roll out the red carpet for our 2018 inductees at our first Cable Hall of Fame celebration in New York at the phenomenal Ziegfeld Ballroom,” said Penthera Partners CEO and chairman of The Cable Center’s board of directors Michael Willner in a statement “This year’s honorees are some of the most respected leaders in our industry, and they have helped to shape the face of cable for future generations.”

The ceremony will be held at the recently renovated Ziegfeld Ballroom, which opened this fall in the former Ziegfeld Theater building. The Ziegfeld hosted Hollywood's top blockbuster movie premieres for decades, earning acclaim as one of the most celebrated venues in the world. The Ziegfeld Ballroom will be the home for the Cable Hall of Fame through at least 2020.

“The dedication, hard work and entrepreneurial spirit shown by this year’s inductees has helped to guide the successful development of our industry. We look forward to honoring this stellar class on April 4,” said The Cable Center CEO Jana L. Henthorn in a statement

For more information on the celebration and to secure sponsorships, visit www.cablehalloffame.com, or call 720-502-7513.

Nomi Bergman, president of Advance/Newhouse Partnership and the former president of Bright House Networks, has been elected to the board of Visteon Corp., a maker of cockpit electronics and connected car products under brands such as Lightscape, OpenAir and SmartCore.

Bergman’s board seat at Visteon becomes effective October 1. Bergman was alsorecently named to the board of Mediamorph, a cloud-based rights management systems for programmers and video distributors.

Those appointments followed Charter Communications’s acquisition of Bright House and Time Warner Cable in May.

“We are honored to welcome Nomi to our board of directors,” said Francis Scricco, chairman of Visteon’s board of directors, in a statement. “She adds a tremendous amount of industry leadership as proven by her role in leading the cable television industry into the software phase of its development.”

“I am honored to join the talented, dedicated members of the Visteon board and company, who have courageously led the firm through a significant transformation,” added Bergman. Both inspired confidence in me, as they have done with their customers. Visteon has clearly emerged with a strong balance sheet, a robust foundation of successful design and manufacturing experience, and a crisp, innovative focus on cockpit electronics and connected car solutions.”

Dr. Rouzbeh Yassini, a Visteon board member and DOCSIS pioneer known as the “Father of the Cable Modem,” said: “Visteon’s transformation to provide software platforms for the auto industry began in 2014, gained momentum with the 2015 hiring of Sachin [Lawande] as its CEO, and now adds more strength with the addition of Nomi to Visteon’s board with her solid technical and service- oriented leadership.”

Visteon posted Q2 sales of of $773 million and net income of $26 million, or $0.76 per diluted share.

Click here for more FCC set-top box news.

Even as the FCC was unveiling chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal to bring competition to the set-top market by "unlocking" cable boxes and making the information available to competitors who want to wed traditional and online video content (an AllVid-like proposal), the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, American Cable Association, Motion Picture Association of America, and a host of others were unveiling the Future of TV Coalition to beat the commission to the consumer video choice punch.

The coalition, co-chaired by Alfred Liggins of TV One and Nomi Bergman of Bright House, will celebrate and promote what its 47 members say is the already thriving innovation in video experience options to provide even more choices.

Look for it to be making that point loudly to the FCC as the commission collects comments on the chairman's proposal, which was premised on the assertion that the video access device market instead needed a competitive boost because choices were few and prices high, with consumers "chained to their set-top boxes because cable and satellite operators have locked up the market."

"The ‘AllVid’ proposal is a brazen money grab by Big Tech companies that would do severe damage to the programming ecosystem, and in particular, niche and minority-focused networks," said Liggins in a statement. "Everyone who cares about quality, diverse television should let the FCC know that AllVid is a harmful non-starter.”

As NCTA argued in comments warning the FCC off an AllVid approach, the coalition said Wednesday (Jan. 27) that such an approach would allow a handful of tech companies to "replace innovation with government regulation." It said that AllVid "would force programmers and TV providers to dismantle their shows and services for these companies to repackage, reuse, and exploit without negotiating for the rights like everybody else in the market does today. AllVid would not give viewers access to any new programming or content that isn’t already available in their homes and would not replace or lower their existing television bills."

FCC officials speaking on background say their proposal would not force the disaggregation of TV content, would respect existing MVPD contracts with programmers and their subs, and would not require anyone to get a competing device if they were satisfied with their current box.

But they also signaled that they think it is necessary to "unlock" the MVPD's hold on video access devices.

Other members of the new coalition include AT&T/DirecTV and DISH.

New Orleans — More than any single force shaping the television and broadband industry, technology is driving the biggest change.

Engineers and executives steeped in hardware and software acronyms, domestic and international, picked apart the biggest challenges faced by the industry, spanning mobile, multi-gigabit broadband, the IP video transition and a host of others, at the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers Cable-Tec Expo in New Orleans last week.

Waxing Wireless

While U.S. cable operators are leaning heavily on WiFi to lead their wireless strategies, Liberty Global has also been pushing hard on quad-play offerings that tie in the MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) model.

Mobile “is becoming the primary computing device,” Balan Nair, the MSO’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, said during a presentation about technology trends and how the operator is handling new forms of competition.

Liberty Global now has about 4.5 million mobile subscribers through its MVNO relationships (that subscriber number is expected to grow to 8 million through the MSO’s M&A activity). Nair said Long Term Evolution (LTE) allows for seamless connectivity, and the technology is on the road to delivering gigabit capacities.

“LTE is here to stay,” Nair said.

But WiFi “is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our story going forward,” he said, noting that delivering a good WiFi experience in the home matters more to many consumers than the wired broadband pipe connecting the home itself.

Nair also shed some light on Liberty Global’s future plans, telling the crowd the MSO is working on its first “WiFi-first” device, which would prefer WiFi access when it’s available and seamlessly fall back to the LTE mobile network when it’s not.

Enabling that seamless transition “is not an easy thing to do,” Nair allowed, adding that Liberty Global expects to introduce the WiFi-first product toward the fourth quarter of 2016.

During the follow-up panel moderated by Cox Communications president Pat Esser, Nair outlined four ways cable operators can enter the mobile game — they can build and operate the network themselves (if they have spectrum); buy another mobile provider; launch a “lite” MVNO whereby the MSO is relegated as a reseller; or introduce a “full” MVNO play where the operator builds out the mobile “core,” keeps call control and essentially rents access to the radios and base stations.

Liberty Global has tried out all four, and Nair was direct about the issues cable operators face with the home-grown route.

“I’ll tell you, building sucks,” he said. Though Liberty Global was able to obtain spectrum relatively cheaply, the MSO shut down its home-grown network about 18 months after launching it.

He said Liberty Global has found the most success, from an operational and economic standpoint, with the full MVNO approach, which allows the operator to control the SIM card that goes in the smartphone.

“In the end, it’s about handsets and price,” he said, noting that he puts the lite MVNO on the “bottom of the list” because the operator has no control — it’s just about renting and selling.

Nair also talked up the positive effect quad-play bundles have on customer retention.

“Over time, the churn rate is discernable between a quad-play and a non quad-play,” he said. “There’s a downside, though. If you screw up with mobile, you lose all four — you lose the whole quad-play.”

Service Agility, IP Video, Cybersecurity

The technology chiefs jumped to other topics during Wednesday’s conversation, including service agility, customer-centricity, the all-IP progression and cybersecurity.

Comcast, fresh off the national rollout of its voice remote, will launch an add-on called “X1 Answers” in mid-November, MSO executive vice president and CTO Tony Werner said.

“You’ll be able to ask, ‘What was the Broncos score?’ ‘How tall is the Empire State Building?’ I think it’s going to change a lot of things,” he said.

The transition to all-IP is foundational to proactive change, Werner and others said. By this time next year, Comcast will have deployed 8 million pure- IP set-tops, which matters to serving video on second screens.

“We have the same number of baby boomers as millennials right now, and the millennials are watching a lot more content on mobile,” Werner said. “If we have 24 million customer relationships and 15 million video starts in a week [on mobile devices] — that’s exponential, and it will probably only continue to grow. If you don’t have video over IP, you’re going to miss a big part of the audience — and it’s a growing part, not a shrinking part.”

Rolling out more features and services more quickly is a big priority for all network operators, execs said.

Liberty Global, which is deploying only Reference Design Kit-based devices and will begin converting to HEVC (High-Efficiency Video Codec) for 4K/Ultra HD video next year, will get to service agility using defined and publishable APIs (Application Program Interfaces), Nair said.

“I just want to build a stack that has almost every functionality covered by APIs — it’s a big transition for us,” Nair said.

For Nomi Bergman, president of Bright House Networks, the near-term product future includes more 10-Gigabit EPON (Ethernet Passive Optical Network), with an eye toward 100-G EPON. “We’re now helping to create the standard for that,” she said.” Also hot in BHN markets: Its “Echo”-branded whole-home WiFi solution.

“It represents a really nice collaboration between the technology, product and marketing teams,” she said.

On the heels of Tuesday’s Cybersecurity Symposium, Nair described a massive hack in the Netherlands, where 2 million broadband connections were shut down, two nights in a row. The four perpetrators were arrested a couple of weeks ago, and the incident caused Liberty to overhaul its crisis handling mechanisms.

“In dealing with communications, law enforcement, regulatory, PR — as it turned out, what we had wasn’t the most easily translatable during a crisis. We had to rebuild a lot of our processes,” Nair said.

Panelists were also asked to discuss some things they’re working on today. Phil McKinney, president and CEO of CableLabs, said his thinking tends to gravitate to what’s coming tomorrow, noting that his group has been focused on “exponential technologies” — things that are outside the scope of the traditional planning cycle.

He said he worries about “what’s beyond the horizon … so that we don’t get surprised.”

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