morning at 8 eastern through monday morning at 8 eastern. nonfiction books all weekend, every weekend right here on c-span2. >> you're watching public affairs programming on c-span2. here's a look ahead. next, "the communicators" continues its series of interviews from the cable show in washington with the presidents of cox communications and espn. then critics of the nsa data collection program voice their concerns at a forum of the congressional internet caucus advisory committee. after that an fcc commissioner talks about cell phone unlocking which allows consumers to use their phones with a different carrier. and later, marriott international ceo arnie sorenson speaks at the chief financial officers conference. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1979, brought

to you as a public service by your television provider. >> this week "the communicators" is at the cable show in washington d.c. where we interview leaders of two large communications companies, cox communications and espn. >> host: well, now we want to introduce you here on "the communicators" to pat esser. mr. esser is president of cox communications. if you would, start by giving us a snapshot of cox communications. >> guest: cox communications, we just celebrated our 50th anniversary of a company. we're a private company, part of cox enterprises, our larger parent entity. we serve about six million commercial and residential customers across the country, about ten million households. we're a telecommunications, broadband, video, voice -- as i said earlier -- business and residential services. and i think we're known, our

commitment to our people, our commitment to our customers and investments we've made in our communities is really what our reputation is. >> host: mr. accesser, is cox communications a growth company right now? >> guest: it is a growth company. it's been a growth company for a lot of years. we isn't get here easily. we've always been focusing on what's important for the business, and in 1986 as an example of more recent times when the telecom act went into effect, in 1997 we were rolling out digital video, we were rolling out broadband services, residential telephone services, commercial services and bringing the bundle to the market. we were the first mso in the country to start bundling products together. and for that, a, our customers responded positively, and we're able to get into new wizs that -- businesses that, you know, others didn't even dream about because we got in there so early, and we were rewarded for

that. >> host: how important is business-to-business -- >> guest: to us? >> host: to cox right now? >> guest: well, you know, we were early in a company alled teleport where we really started to learn the commercial space. and at the same time we're rolling out residential services, and the two kind of came together, and we saw this opportunity in the market with small to medium businesses that were being very underserved. and over the last 10-12 years, we've been microfocused on how we can serve that market. it leverages the same network, the same capabilities, the same organization, and today it represents about a billion five in revenue to us. and we have a number of new products and services that we've developed and are launching as i sit here to serve that marketplace. i think we have a great reputation in that space. >> host: pat esser is president of cox communications head quartered in atlanta. you're also co-chair of the cable show here in washington d.c. >> guest: yes.

>> host: is cable a tech business right now? >> guest: well, let me, first, back up and say welcome to d.c., although it's probably your home, so this is probably a short trip for you. but thank you to you, c-span, the c-span bus and the crew for coming here and spending time with us. the national show is very important to us. it's a chance to talk to our consumers about things that are happening inside our business, it's a chance to talk to members of congress, fcc members, commissioners, staff, bureau chiefs about things going on inside the business. so, first, thank you for coming here and making that important on your schedule because it's important to us. is it a technology business? the cable industry is more than just a simple wire that goes through your neighborhood. there is a lot of infrastructure and intelligence inside that network, and it provides a lot of things that, honestly, connect our customers to the things in life that are important to them. and we never forget that. and it's national shows like this we have an opportunity to

talk about that. but that's really, in essence, who we are. we connect people to things in life they care about. and cox lives that motto every day. you asked about the show. if you don't mind, i'll talk about a couple themes of the show. one thing we want people to take away is innovation's occurring here, inside this industry. if you haven't heard the statistic, if you look back to 1996 -- which i made a reference to the telecom act of '96 -- and you advance forward and say how much money has this industry spent in infrastructure, the industry has spent over $200 billion. cox communication has built out this incredible nationwide broadband platform. and today as you sit around the show and hook at the trends and see the things going on, you're hearing about things like mobility, wi-fi in our customers' lives. we just announced we're doing a metro wi-fi exchange between msos, 150,000 hot spots in the country. no one else provides 150,000 hot

spots, and that'll continue to grow. it gives our customers another place they can connect with our company. and while they travel, it gives them a chance to roam and still get that same connectivity. you hear about second screens, and i can talk about that a bit, what services we're bringing to the market relates to second screens. third party partnerships, companies that didn't even exist five years ago. we talked about business services. it's an important part of the show. we talk about that all the time. we talk about the cloud, how the cloud has enabled all these incredible this things in your lie and what's our platform doing. so we have a lot of exciting things going on at the show, and your timing couldn't be any better. >> host: where is cox when it comes to tv everywhere? >> guest: right now customers can get their awe they authentid products on the web by going to

cox.com and enter in their customer password and id and they can get op. can i talk about tv everywhere? it's a tangent, but it's an important one. about four years ago i was in silicon valley, might have been five years ago, with my peers in the cable industry. and we decided to go out there because we saw a lot of this activity occurring. we wanted to better understand how silicon valley looked at us as an industry and how our platform was going to help hem inknow -- help them innovate. we met with google, apple, one company we were at a dinner, and the head of palm at the time was sitting by me at dinner. and he said to me, and it's an honest comment that i needed to hear, he said to me you think you can compete with us? he said, you live in a world where your innovation cycles are as fast as your ability to

change out a box in a customer's home. and that means every five years you innovate. i live in a world where i roll out a platform at palm that i can say today go, and in 18 weeks it's out the door. and how do you think you're going to innovate against that? it fired me up. i was never more upset in my life. not because what he said wasn't a truth, it was. it was a rallying cry for me to look into my organization, look into this company and figure out how we could improve our cadence and quarterly delivery of products and services. and we've worked very hard to put us in a place to deliver new products and services. so we did a ton of research with marketing two years ago. we continue to do that research, and customers told us four things. the first thing they told us is they wanted a user interface that's easier to use, it's more intuitive, it's just simple, and we need to make more investments in user interface. the second thing they said was i have second screens in my life.

activate those second screens so i can activate the content information i want. the third thing they said was you know me. make it more personal. it takes me 10-12 minutes to find out what i want to watch on an average night. so you have the capability, you have the analystics, put it to work for me. and finally, probably not a surprise to you, they love their dvr. so they started on this mission. the product group has been working very hard to bring that to market, and we are right on the cusp of bringing those products and services to the market and actually champion straiting it here at the -- demonstrating it here at the show. and i think our customers are going to find it very cool. we rolled out last year a guide called trio that is a very interesting way to see product that's in the wane doe paynes that, basically, brings up content in a much more progressive way. and then in december of 2012

we've put inside of that a recommendation engine that tracks what you know, what you consume as a customer. you can like or dislike, and it's done for you privately and personally. you can turn it off if you want it turned off, but you on an individual level, not a household level, it knows what you like, and it starts to gather that and give it back to you. at the same time, we're looking at a video on demand platform that has 20,000 hours of storage, we doubled that to 40,000 hour, and now we're ready for the last two pieces of the puzzle. the last two pieces are we're bringing an ip video gateway which is your device in your home that has six tuners, twoer terabytes of storage, and it's an ip gateway so we can start to bring apps and content to your television set that's relevant and important to you. on top of that remember i said our customers want us to think about the second screens in their lives? we built a tablet app that we call the personal video

experience. it presents to you in three simple window panes your library and your on demand content, and it's all centered around you, peter. it knows what you like, the nine shows that are live that are most relevant to you, it knows what's in your stored content, dvr content and even in vod, it sorts it down and brings it to the top so immediately you have at your fingertips what you want. you can consume it on that tablet, or you can stop and say send to the tv, and you can send it all to the it's set and enjoy it. when you set that tablet down, the next person can pick it up, and they can say i'm pat. and it immediately tells me what pat likes. it moves on the next user. very cool. >> host: pat esser, one of the issues we are currently discussing in washington is the issue of privacy, personal privacy, cyber privacy.

do people -- have you been approached by government agencies to provide people's personal information? >> guest: no. we protect that with a great ament of -- amount of respect and responsibility. we do not share our customers' information with anyone. obviously, for building reasons and records it's all very secure. we have a chief privacy officer. he and his team oversee that constantly to make sure nothing is getting outside the walls of our company. you have to be a very specific number of employees who can access information to do customer records, do transactions, do installs, do service calls. but, no, our customers' privacy is pretty important to us. >> host: as president of cox communication, how much time do you spend on privacy issues or washington-based issues? >> guest: well, when you talk about washington-based issues, i'm in washington probably once a month. i spend a fair amount of time with members of the hill. more with the commerce committee

members probably than anybody else because that is the committee of the hill or the committee of the congress or house of representatives and senate that spends most of their time thinking about our industry. they have a lot of questions. we come up and spend time with them so they know what's going on. they're tracking a lot of developments in many our industry constantly. obviously, the fcc has a lot of regulatory power over our industry. we spend a fair amount of time with the commissioners there. so because of that, i find myself about once a month i'm up here spending time. i think it's important. regulatory world is, you know, it's a part of who we are. big parts of our business are highly regulated. we need to make sure we're following those regulations, we understand those regulations. as changes are being made to those, we need to insure that our point of view, our customer's point of view is understood. >> host: what issue right now are you most concerned with? >> guest: in business in general? >> host: in regulation. >> guest: in regulation probably the issue, i wouldn't say

concerned, but the issue that will probably occupy the rest of my career is there's a belief there's going to be a rewrite of the telecom act, and this is a very complex business that's changing, literally, as i sat here, the business has probably changed in the last 30 minutes. and i want to make sure those who are writing the laws understand all of the issues in the business, understand the variables of the business, the complexity of the business. and there are some things that do need to guess addressed, but make sure they understand how they're interdependent. i don't want to say i worry about it, but i spend time on it because i want them as well informed as possible. >> host: would you like to see a comprehensive rewrite of the telecom laws? >> guest: over time, yes. piecemeals are dangerous, but over time i do think we have to understand the world we live in. it's just something as simple as this. i just research -- i'm talking about just video, not even broadband, voice, buzz services, just video alone. talking to our customers in march. 60% of the content that they

consume is no longer live video content, live linear on their tv. so 60% is either a dva, it's on a second screen, it's being streamed, down loaded, dvd, on and on. the world has changed. it will continue to change. let's make sure our telecom laws reflect that. >> host: and we've been talking with pat esser, cox communication. when did you get started in this business and why? [laughter] >> guest: good question. i started in this business in 1979. i came out of college, i was always passionate. i'd just come out of college, always passionate about the business, and i started as a cable installer in waterloo, iowa, climbing poles. >> host: were you very good at it? >> guest: no, i was horrible at it. [laughter] i wish i could say i was a good technician. it was a wonderful career path for me. but because i fell so often, the chief tech said, esser, you're going to marketing. so i now learned in life that

you cannot be successful in technology, they put you in marketing. and i sold door the door, we did all the stuff that marketing did back in the '70s, and i got a great break in 1981. i, number one, in '79 i heard about a company called cox communications, and i drove to hampton roads, virginia, on a thursday night and knocked on their door and got a job as a public access director. at the same time, my big break came when the university of northern iowa -- i'm an alma mater of the school -- contacted me and allowed me to go back and get my graduate degree and do most of my work in the business school. i started to hone my skills, and enwhen i came back in '81, i got back with cox. helped start up a business from scratch k4-6s an ad sales. espns and the a and the -- so we had usa and cnn, i think, at the time. working with local businesses to

tell their stories in the local markets, and from there, i've been with cox ever since. it's been an incredible run. >> host: and you're watching "the communicators" on c-span. we've been talking with pat esser with cox communications. thanks for your time. >> guest: peter, thank you for coming today. we appreciate it. >> host: well, now joining us on "the communicators" is the president of espn. he's also co-chair of the disney media networks, john skipper is his name. mr. skipper, how did you become president of espn? >> guest: well, i'll tell you, i'm just as surprised as you are. [laughter] george -- [inaudible] was the president for 13 years, and i had the great privilege of succeeding him at his decision starting last january, and it's really been, it's really been a great with year and a half for me. >> host: where did you get started with disney and abc? >> guest: i got started at disney in 1990 when disney wanted to start a book and magazine division. so i actually moved from my home in new york city out to

california, burr back, and helped them start a magazine/book acquisition. when disney bought esps, i transferred over there to start their magazine. >> host: so you didn't begin live as an athlete -- >> guest: i began life as a mediocre athlete. i played a lot of basketball as a kid in north carolina, but nobody ever came along recruiting me. >> host: what's the biggest competition right now for espn and phi, ten years from now what do you see as the biggest competition for espn? >> guest: well, there's a lot of competition and always has been. you know, the networks have their, the leagues have their own networks. right now, of course, there's a lot of attention being paid because fox is going to launch a new channel, fox sports 1 on august 17th. nbc launched a channel about a year and a half ago, turned oln into nbc sports network. there are conference networks. turner, cbs, we have plenty of

competition, and it's mostly a competition for programming rights, for talent, for advertising dollars and, ultimately, of course, for eyeballs. >> host: so where does it go from here? >> guest: oh, i just think it gets more complicated and more competitive, right? i mean, everybody understands that sports and live sports right now is the sweet spot of media. it is almost the only thing that you have to watch live. so that has increased its value. and i think everybody's seeing that now whether they be social media sites that are partnering with us to tweeting about sports or to show sports as we have shown live sports on facebook, other networks, other cable networks, the leagues. i mean, i think everybody understands that sports rights are quite valuable. >> host: mr. skipper, when it comes to espn sports and tv everywhere, is espn available on all devices? >> guest: yes, it is.

that is the perfect question for me, because the answer is, yes. it's available on all devices. this has been very important to us, and it goes back to live, right? if you have to watch your game live, it is best to be in your living room with a big 70-inch hd screen in front of you. but if you're in the office for the world cup, you watch it on your computer. if you're at a picnic while your baseball game's playing, you watch it on your tablet. if you happen to be in a business meeting, you might slip a look down at your smartphone and watch the game there. we were first with our watch espn products. espn2, espnu, espn3 all available 24/7 on whatever dice you want to watch -- device you want to watch, wherever you want to watch it. >> host: what about the potential deal with verizon that espn has talked about where you could have live streaming, but it wouldn't count against your cap? >> guest: that was really an exploration, and we're always

looking into being on top of technology, doing new things. as to whether people hitting their caps would interfere with their ability to get espn, we explored it, we've not moved forward with it, we don't anticipate anything imminent, and it's just really about our wanting to make sure that our products are available to our fans. >> host: is there a price point where people will say, no, i do not want sports, i do not want -- i cannot afford to pay for sports anymore? >> guest: the -- look, we're highly cognizant of providing as much value to fans as possible. and that's why we've aggregated the portfolio sports rights we have. the new college football championship is going to be on espn. all of wimbledon is on espn. all of the u.s. open tennis will be on espn starting in 2015. the british open will be on espn. conference championships in the acc and the sec, on and on. sunday night baseball, monday

night football. there is a lot of value. then you watch it on any device, as we were just discussing. and you can check scores on your score center app and go on to espn.com and comment or get articles. so we provide a lot of value. we think it's appropriately priced, and generally as we survey fans and talk to our distributer partners, they believe it to be appropriately priced as well. >> host: what do you say to senator john mccain who has talked about his a la carte bill, he's mentioned espn by name, what's your response to him? >> guest: my response is, of course, highly respectful for what he's done for our country. and he's often been right. in this case he's very wrong. a la carte will not lead to more choice for consumers, it will lead to less choice. it will not lead to less expense for consumers, it will lead to more expense for consumers because systems will be forced to raise their prices per channel. the channels will go out of business. so it will not work. there's another myth that gets

perpetuated in this discussion, and that is the myth that there's an awful lot of people out there not watching espn. last week 113 million people watched or logged on or listened to or read espn. 88% of all households who get espn watch espn. so we're not a niche channel. go into any bar in the country, go through any airport, go through any dorm room, go through any fraternity house, espn is on. we're often the backdrop for what's happening around the country here, because it's live sports. so we're not a niche channel, so that's just wrong. >> host: mr. skipper, i wanted to ask you, finally, about social issues and espn. jason collins comes out. does espn have a policy when it comes to approaching social issues like that? >> guest: it's complicated, of course, and we have policies, but that doesn't mean you can capture every situation, right? so we are forever encountering new situations that cause us to

create new policies, but we'll never catch up. there are complicated issues. we have commentators, analysts, writers, columnists whose job it is to give their opinion. we then have reporters whose job it is to report and state the facts and do interviews. we try not to get them mixed. we got them mixed in the jason collins matter where we had a reporter begin to express their point of view about this social issue. that was a mistake on his part. although we put him in a different circumstance, is -- difficult circumstance, so we bear responsibility as well. we want to also separate as a company, we want to be socially responsible. we are an inclusive environment. we are nondiscriminatory environment, a nonharassment environment with opportunities for all people including gay employees. we do not want to have separate career pasts, separate success pasts for homosexuals. we encourage gay people to be, to work at espn.

so we have that, but this doesn't mean it's appropriate on our air to necessarily advocate for that. we don't have an editorial page, right? we have individuals who express their opinion, but at espn we don't have a public social point of view. >> host: and we have been -- >> guest: necessarily. >> host: we have been catching up with john skipper who is president of espn, co-chair of the disney media networks. you're watching "the communicators" on c-span. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1979, brought to you as a public service by your television provider. >> coming up next, representatives from the aclu, the cato institute and other groups voice their concerns about the nsa data collection program. then, fcc commissioner ajit pai talks about unlocking codes in

mobile devices to allow consumers to use their phones with different carriers. after that, a couple of interviews from the recent "wall street journal" chief financial officers' network conference featuring marriott international ceo arne sorenson followed by house ways and means committee ranking member sander levin. remarks now from critics of the nsa data collection programs. they recently spoke at an event hosted by the congressional internet caucus advisory committee. speakers include internet attorneys and representatives with the aclu and cato institute. this is a little over an hour. [inaudible conversations]

>> like to have your attention, please. welcome to all of you who are here today, and welcome to those who are viewing this program through c-span to today's program on privacy, the nsa and your con stitch wents' -- cop stitch went's phone and internet records and primer on the history. my name is roger cochetti, and on behalf of the internet caucus advisory committee, welcome to today's discussion. let me tell all of you, including those watching on c-span, that the twitter hash tag for today's program is icacnsa. that's icacnsa, the twitter hash tag.

for about 15 years, the internet education foundation has pursued programs on -- educational programs for the policy community and the public on the internet, and it has done this in a nonpartisan, purely educational way. these programs include the work of the congressional caucus, congressional internet caucus advisory committee of which today's discussion is a part, and they also include the state of the net conference, state of the mobile net, get net wise, and we expect soon a new program on internet applications. i would encourage all of you who have an interest in this field to visit our web site. that's neted.org and learn more about the work of the internet education foundation. and if you like our work and think it's useful, i would draw your attention to the little button on the upper right-hand corner that's surrounded by credit cards, because we operate

due to the contributions of generous supporters like you who might be interested in it. today's luncheon discussion is part of a program, a series of such discussions sponsored by the internet caucus advisory committee. the internet caucus advisory committee is made up of trade associations, nonprofit organizations, professional organizations, businesses and others who are interested in and supportive of a neutral and open dialogue about the internet and its activities and functions. like all such events, it is made possible through the support and leadership of the internet caucus' co-chairs, senators leahy and thune and representatives goodlatte and eshoo. again, the hash tag for today's discussion is icacnsa.

and the web site if you want to learn more about the internet education foundation is neted.org. the topic of today's program could not be more important or more timely, and we will conclude the program by about 1:00. the discussion will be led by mary ellen callahan, a partner with the law firm of jenner and block and a former chief privacy office of the department of homeland security. thank you all again for joining us, and we all look forward to an interesting program. mary ellen, thank you. >> thank you very much, roger, and welcome everybody. i want to briefly introduce my colleagues here on the panel, and i'm going to give a brief overview. since this is a primer, we're going to go very quickly and cover a lot of topics, but we're going to try to keep on our time. alphabetically to my left i have alan davidson, formerly the director of public policy at