15 Interactive TV Themes from The Cable Show 

Day One

1. What the consumer wants he or she will (eventually) find a way to get. Discovery Communication's CEO David Zaslav articulated that point in the opening session. So better for the industry to get behind consumer behaviors driving TV Everywhere.

2. Multi-screen capabilities are table stakes just like HD became table stakes a few years back. Ericsson's Matthew Goldman, SVP Technology CTO Group, made this point prior to cuing up a demo of their multi-screen ecosystem solution. Watch Demo 

3. Lack of scale and industry reticence to share results holding back the iTV industry. Despite that point, Cathy Hetzel, Rentrak's always articulate President of Advanced Media and Information, is still a believer in the value of advanced advertising, particularly when the engagement metric is time spent.

4. Solve the content fragmentation challenge and you will address a major source of viewer frustration. That's just what Cisco's Dr. Ken Morse CTO, SP Video Technology Group, is striving to do with his Videoscape Voyager Vantage. Watch Demo 

5. Not only consumers but also content distributors seek easy (easier?) solutions to multi-screen video delivery. So it's back full circle to our #1 point. And Azuki's President & CEO John Clancy argued that his company's competitive advantage is "one video feed in and all platforms out."  

Day Two        

6. Putting viewers in control of how they engage logically leads to giving them a choice of screens on which to engage. Softel's CEO Sam Pemberton underscored this during my one-on-one meeting with him as well as in his demo at Imagine Park of their just launched MediaSphere Bridge Ecosystem, a cool new take on engaging viewers on multiple screens.  

7. Viewers sometimes just want to have fun. A&E's Jennifer McNab-Bauman walked me through a surfeit of engaging, fun games for their networks. Nothing too serious but an easy break for someone during the day. And the Softel interactive ad demo featured - what else - a simple game for ad viewers during a Coke commercial.  Watch Demo 

8. All is not equally social. The most intriguing stat of the day was from SocialGuide founder and CEO Sean Casey who noted that while sports programming constitutes just 2% of all live programming they measure, their stats show it drives half of all social TV dialogue! Watch Demo  

9. The increasingly rapid evolution of the TV experience in terms of the engaged customer is powered by multiple trends. comScore's Joan Fitzgerald underscored this by citing three key drivers: (i) a vast increase in consumption of online video (see her slide); (ii) rise of social media, specifically usage while watching TV; and (iii) penetration of mobile platforms (smartphones and tablets).    

Conan O'Brien Interviewed by Piers Morgan on his Social TV Strategy at The Cable Show 2012