corp. they spoke at the national cable ♪ >> we are lucky to have this new leader, michael powell. he is unmatched in his ability and expertise to really distal everything that matters to the cable industry. let's hear it for michael palle, a big welcome. [applause] + hopefully, he'll use his diplomatic grace to keep the

cable guys from strangling the content guys. they are very excited to get out here and show you what the big issues are in all of this. we put this together in an interesting way, free cable, three contents, let's meet our panelists.

[applause] >> the president of comcast cable communications -- neil-- >> it's just kneel because he is a distributor and a content guide. sit down, gentlemen, thank you for being here. let's get started. obviously we have both sides represented. i was asking backstitch how we will see them. i don't want the three content guys together so we will go alphabetically. it is great to have all of you here. number one, we will not be boring here. i am forcing them not to be.

we want to hear of the non-pr kind of statements and ideas. we want to delve deeply into all of this. [laughter] set down. we will start with the fact that every time i go to the shows, something is trending and the one thing that is is the new amounts of choice. it was really cable that used to be the place of choice. 100 channels, everybody is cold cable, that is awesome, but suddenly there are hundreds of thousands of choices and not all of them have to do with cable whether it is youtube or amazon or what google and apple-tv are

doing. how could you guys let that happen word got out of the hands of cable and what are you going to do to get it back? let me start with you, neil. you really deal with the distributor part of it. how you get people back to saying that cable is the place to be? >> i think it is all about it personalized experience. it is about my favorites at my watch list and my recommendations that work for me. it is less about the tv or the internet or even ask. it is about what experience works for me that will stay with me across different platforms. it is a common user interface. wherever you go, that interfaces what you get and it is personalized to me or you. i think that is the trend we are seeing and we are working hard towards. >> glenn, you know about what starts with me and my nine-year

old kid turns into the rest of the nation. we saw that with the music industry and napster. they ignored it and they lost control of their industry. cable does not want to be the next music industry. how do you prevent that from happening? >> i will go back to what you said about not being dealt. we're pretty dull guys. >> that is why i were green. >> the key for all of us is to keep changing with the technology and we have to offer consumers the features that they want and use the technology to do that. i don't think it is magic. we all have technical people who understand it. we understand consumers. if you think about it, what this industry has done collectively and historical is to match an

understanding of consumers with an understanding of technology. there is a lot going on and none of us know exactly where it is going but i figure is more opportunity for us in this than anything else >. >> does that keep you up at night? it is moving at the speed of light. >> i'm not sure you should characterize it that it got away from us. we created this chaos. you give consumers a choice and that creates business opportunities. i think at the end of the day, you have to keep going back to the consumer and ask what the value of what they don't value. you have to keep talking to the people will create those wonderful content and share that learning to create new types of business models that exist or don't exist and harvest those in the marketplace and the consumers will reward you for doing that. in some cases, you will not

control everything. you'll only control 60 percent o60% of it and that is the reality. >> phillippe, do you agree with that? >> in the world with a lot of choices, mickey still rules. television as the foundation for a lot of the viewing that takes place and a lot of the conversation out there. the cable television programming continues to gain share against broadcasting tv viewing is at an all-time high. our viewers get to enjoy the content in many different ways and they get to interact with it. we have many of our shows with features that include social networking activity. we have on tosh.0, live tweets

during the show and it creates more energy and passion around the programming. a lot of activity is carried. there are two parts of our industry, programming and distribution and they have grown together. for the content owners, there has never been a better time. we have the ability to reach consumers in many different ways to get them were engaged in more passionate about the brand that we have and the characters we have on our shows. it is a great opportunity. >> you are in litigation with the guy sitting on the other sidetheglenn britt. what is that about? you want to be able to get approval to put that stuff on to the other opportunities out there like that tablets which is a huge issue.

chase, will you fight it or abrasives? >> you have to embrace it. we have to excite the consumer and deliver an experience that is right for them. it starts with making it easy to use. what has made apple so successful is it is a great intuitive experience. we have to do a better job of bringing these new things forward to excite consumers. we have talked about things like authentication for two years and we're still talking. we have to recognize others are doing things. it is both sides. we have to deliver content experiences along with the distribution. our rights are our backbone. we create great content and we have to work with distributors to deliver that content and do it in interesting ways. we have to work agreements on

how we do it and make sure the rights we have are deployed properly. that is according to the agreements we have in place. it cannot just be the wild west. you have to have structure in business. within that, we have to do a better job of bringing new and exciting things forward in the marketplace. >> and then there is jeff with time warner, you stepped forward and said tv everywhere. what you doing with that? >> let's all cheer up. [laughter] this is not the music industry. this is the cable industry. this is the cable convention. [applause] i was watching the debate last night, it is morning in the cable industry. it is time to keep this fantastic industry moving.

we have always, in this industry, invented the most cutting edge, most desired and watched things in the united states. think what we have built together over the last 30 years. all of this infrastructure, the reason you can get things on tablets and smart phones is because of the infrastructure that was frankly led by the people in this room and is now being copied and augmented by telephone and satellite companies. it is a fantastic infrastructure. it got built like the railroads. it is the most successful, vibrant, high-quality content industry in the world and it is being copied in every country in the world. it is really good. the quality is much better. if you think of the content that people want to watch on the

internet delivery devices, the best content is the stuff that premiered on cable systems on television screens. everything about it is up. the quality is up. the diversity is up. the programming budgets are up. the profits are up. the whole thing is going great. what we need to do is we have to put it on demand and make it a good interface. that is what the internet industry is bringing. frankly, it is good they are. they are bringing on the tools to take the great content we already have and make it more available for the viewer is that love it. we should be really happy and excited about where we are right now. [applause] >> but people want to get paid before the content. if you're going to do quality content, they want it to look good. screen but itsion

is not necessarily the tv screen that people are looking at any more. they are looking at a tablet now. that is a whole different screen inside the home. you guys are the ones with the band with pipes. how do you make sure that you don't get a different generation -- i don't understand it because i am not in that generation -- i am saying this is very positive but you have nine year-old kid telling their parents -- i had guy talking about cable and the guy said don't get cable and he told his dad how it would work. >> we should be meeting the consumer demands. consumers want to consume things in the house, great. outside the house, fine. we should meet those needs. we have 185,000 choices.

we have raised 5 million unique last month. we are seeing more consumption. great premium content like hbo is being consumed. in terms of people wanting to get paid, think there are different currencies. we recently launched a catch up with all major networks that showed any role in four episodes. when we talked to the different networks, they want to get ratings for us on their vod platform so we worked with neilsen to do that. we reached a basic compromise that was given a ratings on vod and i will give you more content. it was a real win for both parties. the more we work with in the ecosystem, the better. the more the pace is moving faster but the conversations between the programs and they

-- the programmers and distributors need to happen on a more frequent basis because of the pace of change. >> but you guys are busy renegotiating contracts and that gets contentious. how you have that conversation? >> i don't think the conversation is that complicated. the consumer is willing to pay fair value. for a good experience. we have to deliver that experience and make that experience happen. that is first at 4 miles what it is about. i think the consumer is willing to pay for something of quality, something of quality and something that is interesting. we have to take that as of these technologies and these platforms. we have to make it a richer experience that people want to have. in order to do that, people recognize and will value the importance of that.

>> one of your first jobs was to shimmy up a telephone pole to install cable. you know all about this. as you look at where this is going, you have to be saying that you have to figure out a way to embrace it and get the programmers alongside. this is so much diplomacy now, isn't it? >> i want to jump on what neil is talking about. the consumer is senate ms is that the things we're bring into the market they liken value. -- the things that the consumer is getting in the market, they like the value. 31 million sessions last month. the number is probably 300 million session so we are doing something right. i looked at our mobile connect program which launched in march.

100,000 people on their tablet or smart phone signed up. well hedged fund managers are telling stories about their kids and i don't disagree that the marketplace is fragmented, they value the services and products we are bringing to the market. they may assemble them differently but we have a very vital role in figuring that out. i think it is an important role. i have a lot of optimism about what our future looks like. it may mean we have to do some things differently. we have to figure it out together. >> glenn, what do you think? >> we are very influenced by wall street and the latest company but the scale of this industry, the scale of what we do appear, the number of hours and days that people watch video on a platform and the

number of hours that people do broadband, it is unbelievable. the usage of vod, we are clearly doing something right. it does not mean that we can fall behind gary we have to embrace new technology. we need to embrace all the screens. there is no such thing as a tv anymore. we have to do all that but i think we should not sell ourselves short three we are doing things really well right now. >> philippe, this is for the programmers, the content guys -- apple tv, google -tv, we're waiting to see with that is. you have netflix. this is using up the massive amount of them with every night. each one has a different percentage of how much of their band with is being sucked up by netflix. netflix is announcing they are going into original programming.

if i am you, i am thinking of what will they do and is that a threat to me and had to make sure i am getting really cool content that will hit the cerebellum of the people out there looking for interesting things to watch? >> netflix is primarily a service that provides library programming and that's what we have on that flight. we have a classic seasons of some of our shows and it gets people interested in watching the current programming. our industry has always been about windowing content. netflix got involved in one show that was a paid television kind of project by david fincher but that is not the fundamental business. it is not easy to get into the content business.

the number of major studios around today are the exact same city as that existed 75 years ago or more. it is not that easy. where one under% focused on content in our company. -- we are 100% focused on content in our company variant we increase our investment in good times and bad times to serve the consumer which is what it is all about. we work with distributors here and elsewhere to provide great experiences. we work with the cable industry, we work with the satellites the world.netflix of we have -- we had no syndication value in the 10-year-old beavis * & butthead, but now there is a market and we are making money

which allows us to invest in more original content which first aired on the distributor's sitting here. they get the first crack at airshows when we spend the money to make them. >> showtime has come up with platinum quality programming. they put their full shows on netflix as soon as netflix -- they pulled their fall shows off netflix as soon as netflix announced they were doing original programming. >> the way we think about it is it is subscription video on demand at netflix. that is the category that i think we're talking about. what is the value of that to the consumer? we all know that there are

several subscription video on demand networks. one of them as brief them is called hbo. it is subscription. it is on demand. it has been on television with multiplex for 10 years and vod for 10 years and now it is on all your internet devices. for nothing if you are a subscriber. that is the biggest and most prolific in terms of programming rights, original programming, movies come etc. there are several others that are pretty well established. netflix, mayepix, be amazon and their md-80 structure for subscription vod structure.

i think they do a useful thing for consumers. they have a great interface. they offer some easy to find and access to programming. much of it that is streaming is older programming. it is later in the window and that's what you would expect. it is an $8 or $10 service so they can afford it. it would be hard to see how they could afford current programming. i think it's fine. it adds to competition. when did they give it from the hbo point of view, we have been making a lot of original programming for years. we're competing with abc, nbc, cbs originally and now with basic cable networks like tnt or usa which are doing great programming.

adding more programs vs the basic cable business, we are all sitting here at this convention that we have all agreed to this that we will take every channel on television with all the great programming and put all the on demand and that all that so you confine your favorite show on fx or showtime. all of these networks will exist along with netflix and apple and amazon-tv on every device. what we need to do together is get the contents and get all the networks on every device and get an interface that your subscribers really like that can be personalized and can serve them. that is the job we need to do now. >> there has been a long tradition in this industry of

the content side working with the distribution side, developing new technology, getting involved in vod which has become a big thing. i think it is important for the future success of our combined industry to continue to collaborate. it is important that we continue to work together to serve the consumer and that both sides of the equation here in march happy. with the collapse -- equation here emerge happy. it is important that we continue to do that. we need to remember that the consumers need to be served and provide them with what they want for it would have to do it at the right time in the right way met thee have

business objectives that allow us to create the content that people enjoy. we aread-supportive as many of us are, we need to have a measurement system like neilsen so that the viewing on a mobile device that one gets measured so we can sell ads because that is the currency. >> neilsen is not measuring that? >> we need to make sure they do. that is an obstacle to getting true tv everywhere for ad- supported services. four other cable companies, it is a different story because they are in ad-supported. we were the first pay service on an everywhere basis in a multi- platform way. we were conceived that way. we would like to see all of our

services that way but we need to have the technological obstacles overcome and the modernization 0 -- obstacles overcome. once we do that, we will enter a whole new era. >> cord-cutting was what people were talking about many people were limited their cable service. what kind of evidence do you see? is it only a few people part of the housing slowdown? >> we are not seeing any evidence of that right now. there have been 500,000 sub's last quarter so we are seeing a healthy industry. our perspective is let's never give the customer a reason to one cut the cord. let's make the functionality across the different platforms. let's let them view it the way

they want to view it. we a s ounce tokype video, bridget we announced -- we announce skype video conferencing this morning. see cord - cu tting? >> no, i don't see that. that is not what people are talking about when they use that term. i agree that right now the instance of people disconnecting their video packages is barely measurable that is what all the studies said. y.

i see netflix as another programmer. that is really what they are. clearly, if there is something that makes consumers not want to buy the big package that we collectively are selling, that that is a threat to all of us. that is why we have to work together on the functionality. there is no evidence that more than a handful of customers don't want the big package. that is fundamentally what we do. we have more content in any country in the world. >> pat, this reminds me back in 2007 when the subprime was looking scary. somebody said 1.5% of all subprime or failing. another person said that means that 98.5% of people are still paying their mortgages.

suddenly, a couple of years down the road, more mortgages unwound. you look at the horizon, what do you see? >> in our company, we are in a different economic environment and we were in five years ago. that is reality. wiest to gain 250,000 new households per year. we had a good leader yasser will -- we had a good year last year at 80,000 households. it is not a reflection of the multi-channel video problem but it is a business reality we have to deal with. >> what is a reflection of? >> it is a reflection of the consumer's ability to have a disposable incomesc. raig moffatt has been warning us for the last year that while costs have increased, there are segments of populations whose

disposable incomes have stayed flat or decline that have to be very sensitive that we serve customers. they either have disposable income more desperate we have to make sure our product will be highly valued that they have the ability to pay for it. i worry more about that than i do cord0-cutting. we have to serve their values and their affordability. >> we have lived through the worst recession the people on this panel have seen in their lifetimes. it is remarkable that the last thing people cut back on is their television subscriptions. that provides greater value. you have a lot of. choi people are spending a lot of hours in front of the television set and using broadband. it is truly remarkable how well, of all categories, that held up.

there were a couple of quarters where there was a minor decline in households subscribing to cable or satellite or teloco and now it is going up again. if you look at the source for that, it is generally the lack of household formation and the economy. we should be pleased how we have weathered the worst recession we have lived through. >> i think there is truth in all of this. there were more vacant houses in this country during the recession than ever before. our products are fundamentally sold to households, not to individuals. it may sound dumb but if the house is empty, they will not buy our service. s. people were moving in with

others and that seems to be moderating the debt. having said that, we see this around the country -- there is clearly an underclass of people literally cannot afford us. they want it. but it would be who called us to work together on smaller packages that would meet the needs of that population. most of the people want everything. there are people who want something smaller. the economics make that difficult. i understand that. i think it would serve as well to worry about that group. [applause] >> going back to the ipad and the tabloid issue, as people want to move around, before this session, a taped interview with a georgebodenheimer and they

said 2 million people have downloaded their application they have. they are going forward all the way at a thousand miles per hour. he wants to embrace all of this. chaese, how the u.s. news corp. make sure you grab those eyeballs? he said 2 million since april and that is impressive. >> we have to do more and we are doing more. we will launch a network to go service. we launched a complement to speed, speed2 that is that there for a number of moderate we will launch something on soccer that that is geared toward getting enhanced service for the big 10 and again everygame live. we need to continue to do that.

i think we are certainly making it a priority that we have to take all those franchises and figure out how to create that richer experience. >> give me a show of hands from the audience as to how people watch stuff regularly on their ipad or tablets? obviously people are doing this more. my kids say you have to download "modern family" because they want to watch it when they want to watch it. how much does that hurt the cable industry? hd was a great innovation but what needs to happen next to keep people watching? i'm sure the samsung and sunny people are pretty interested in the answer. >> what we are finding with ipad applications is that 50% of the

uses are using tools. and are remote theredvr's 25% of the more watching content. the most sticky is the premium content. we have about 6000 choices and can be viewed in home or out of home. the ipad we think is an exciting tool to tie together the various platforms as well as the views. what needs to happen next is we need to be flexible and work together collaborative lay. ly. the pace of that change is only increasing. we are talking on a very frequent basis. there are rated issues involve their and penetration but it is about flexibility. i did a turner deal and it was across the different platforms.

it was less about the rate penetration and more about the flexibility across the platforms. i think that is the way things are evolving right now >> jeff? >> you said don't be politically correct. you mentioned of the nine year- old saying not to get cable. don't be afraid of your kids. [laughter] >> are you sure about that? >> and i like to watch. >> you like to watch? >> what are you asking? looking at getting people, what will be the next opportunity with that screen on your tv? you guys will be faced with bigger issues. passing hd as an issue, how

could you make the experience better on television? >> putting the tv on the internet device is the first thing. the business model and don't charge people to do it. make it easy for them to use it the way they are accustomed which is on their favorite channel for -- a [applause] through a personalized user interface. make the tv on the internet. secondly, we really all have to remember this -- it is this infrastructure industry that allows for quality audio and visual display of the material. think of what is going on in hollywood in the film industry and the things going on incgi

and 3 d, the incredible increase of picture and sound and getting those to electronic screens. i am not saying that 3d is the only thing. 3d in a theater to be a powerful experience. if it is conceived for it and not just a gimmick. it can be very powerful. we have not yet got 3d working on electric screen tvs. we will. when we get that, the infrastructure will be the number one place that is able to deliver a sound and picture quality of that type in the kind of programming venues that consumers will demand to have. speaking of the pure internet two-lane road infrastructure, it cannot do that and will not be able to do it for a long time.

if it is to do it, the internet delivery of video bits and bytes will have to be organized in such a way that it financially supports the infrastructure investments of cable companies. there really is as a quality lead that serve consumers in the infrastructure with the big package and double and triple play offerings. keep moving that out as quickly as we can so that consumers get a seamless adoption of better technological quality, better picture, better access to what they want when they wanted. it is all in this. there is a lot of us. it is hard to organize. anybody who can take the lead and create an interface that works and create a product, we think hbo is a good example of

what is a channel we all know. it went to multiplex and nowvod on cable and now it is vod on the internet. that makes it important how blending internet access and high-quality video is. it is and the highest quality of transmission. that is the advantage of this industry. it is not an advantage of the so-called internet industry. we need to work on that advantage and we need to keep moving. >> but consumers are changing behavior. it is not just putting television on the internet. you need to have interactivity as part of the television experience. we serve largely young audiences. we do a lot of research in that area. one of our shows onbt, lincoln

park, that show 1.25 million twitter followers. we have 2.5 million facebook fans for this one show. ve an app that we lost two two months ago.elaunched the host of the show will call randomly somebody on the app while they are watching the show and call that person in los angeles and call them live on the show. you need to provide the kind of interactivity. you could have experiences on the internet and people are chatting about the show and you need to have more and more original programming. that's what people want. they don't want to watch the

17th repeat of the same show. we have to shift our view of how we serve the consumer and what the experiences. it is changing. you see it in young people at our whole audience will be behaving differently. >> let me get to another issue that just recently happened. the fcc and department of justice approved a merger between nbc/universal. will there be more mergers in the future? >> willre-merge. >> like liz and richard burton. do you think the world -- will be more mergers? >> not that my opinion counts, but there has been more consolidation going on in the industry.

the great example was comcast- nbc. that is was going on in the u.s. today. people are looking for scale and efficiency and a way to deliver assets across market platforms and it is a fast-moving marketplace. we talked about how consumers want to get their content and information, their communication across their platform of choice. if the content is really good, they will try to get the best they can weather is on a two- inch screen or a 60-inch screen. there still has to be great content but out there and there also have to be in for structure built in this country and it takes billions of dollars to do that. we have to agree on business models that we can all support to get those things in place to give consumers the kind of things they are expecting of us

or enable the capabilities. i thought jeff hit on a good one -- we have to figure these bills -- a business model out. >> chase, can we? do you see barriers on top of the operators? you are the guys that yang to the world series of cablevision. you got back on eventually. >> and the yankees won the world series. >> uva been known to be a guy that stands with a fist. >> there's a long history here. you'll always have a buyer- seller tension. this is about value. is important for us to recognize that we have a much bigger agenda to grow this for the consumer marketplace. than let that tension bog it

down. you're changing a traditional practice and finding more friction that normal and we have dealt with free transmission. we had to change the path for the broadcast business. i think there is more attention in the buyer-seller relationship. it is important that both sides have to recognize that those issues of commerce cannot enter the whole and this industry has had difficult negotiations on the value of content for 20 years. at the end of the day, the industry has continued to go forward and grow. i do believe that we can resolve

those issues of commerce and continued to grow the business. i think we can get to a place of fair value. that was the only interruption in that process. it is our goal to try to work with no disruptions in the broader industry. >> what is the interesting is that we can pick up the phone to each other every day, not that i want to, but we can, and we put together flexible programs. they lost a program called "the voice." the ratings were up 41% in the contest market. it's just a matter of the conversations happening. let's try this or do that. the experimentation of it has been released positive. i don't think that necessarily

requires a merger. i think that is what is -- that is the way the world is evolving. >> what the cable industry does not want to do is get caught in saying they did not see it coming. how do you avoid that? how you make sure that does that happen? is it working together and do peace, love, and happiness and get -- and not get into litigation? had you get beyond this? i know you said we are not the music industry but you can be if you are not careful. >> the best way to not get caught by surprise is to keep looking around. that sounds pretty simple but we all need to know what is going on with technology and what consumers want and if we keep

our eyes open, we will be fine. there's a tendency to focus way too much on technology. we have more technology than anybody knows what to do with. it is about the. consumer is about understanding simple maze that are changing. it is about our ability to do it together. we have to experiment. sometimes our business relationships get in the way of that because everybody wants to know about the money before we experiment. we have to do stuff and see what the consumer wants. >> this grabs the attention of the youth of today is the demo issue. it is summer and now we are unleashing thousands of college graduates. knowing what you know about the industry and knowing where you have a paucity, what would you would buy as people looking for jobs in the television industry,

cable, what ever to major in? with over 9% unemployment rate, we don't know what that -- when that will change, what do you need them most? >> i would say engineers are a very highly desired skill set. thee moving more into software development area. i have a son who just graduated to is an engineer. >> will you hire him? >> no - [laughter] >> i think that is a skill set that we are seeking more. >> i probably spend more time inside my company talking that giving people permission to disrupted the business model. there is this bizarre gravitational pull in my company that people want you to conform and get back in line

with the businesses that exists. anytime you live outside that path, you get pounded. it is giving leaders permission to build small teams and give them the independence to pursue opportunities that normally would not ever exist because we are so disciplined. more time is spent internally -- we used our summer interns to come in and say if you're given our platform and given these resources, what would you do? they use it every day. we get permission to explore that and experiment with that business model. we have to get better at that. >> what are you working for? >> we need more creative people who can make more shows and understand the new technology so they can make programming for broadband and create experiences. >> does it have to be people with other shows or amateurs? >> there is a lot of good amateur work. we have produced several on their shows that we discovered

the talent on the internet. there is a lot of stuff out there. you have to be able to filter. we need to get more and more young, creative people into our company. they need to be able to produce content from many different platforms. that is the future. >> it starts with content. you talk about netflix and youtube and google and facebook and they are creating more demand for content. you need great content and it stands out. if all you have is mediocre content for content that is indistinguishable, that will not get to anywhere. you need content targeted to wait passion that section and the ability to manage the content makes that important. it becomes an experience. you have interactive dimension

is another thing you can add to it. it is the ability to continue to create that content and excite people and then figure out how to distribute it through all these vehicles out there. that will be what drives this business for us. >> engineers are in short supply but i think the skill that is in shorter supply is people who can understand technology and explain it in simple terms so the rest of us can understand. and then related to business models for consumers. that is the whole package and that is really rare. >> great content companies need people to make great content. they need to have great distribution. that has been hand in hand with making great content and developing business models that work for all these sophisticated technological industries.

it is true that technology is important but we should not overemphasize it. we should look at the success improbable as it is of apple. apple certainly has brilliant technology in what it does. what apple does is it focuses as much on design and esthetics and interaction. therefore, they did the improbable thing of taking a device which standard thinking would believe that you cannot make a standout thing. they did it. they did it by focusing on human interaction, design, and the experience. what i would say that we should learn from that is that we've

got great content. we have the best technological plant sitting in this tobr --and sitting in this room. -- brand sitting in this room. we need the consumers happy and content right now watching their favorite tv shows that that will not be enough. they need to be able to have the same control and engagement and feeling they have with internet devices for our content that we have been giving them on television. the interface is really the key. sitting in this room are very different companies in geographic territories. we have to figure out how to get the best in class interfaces adopted in a kind of universal way for the benefit of consumers across this country.

that will enable you to do it more economically and enable our people, your clients to move around to know how to use it and you will get the benefits of scale that is the leading a bandage that the technology industry has. a focus and user interface, ease of use, fairness to consumers, and some big part of the country during this protracted economic condition, there will be -- they will be squeezed for quite awhile. we have to be careful about serving them well. >> before we wrap up, want to ask each one of you -- what channel that is not owned by your company do you watch the most? [laughter] >> start with jeff.

>> pbs. [laughter] [applause] >> i thought you weren't being politically correct. >> we don't own any channels. >> what channels do you like to watch the most? >> i like nbc. >> espn. >> fox business news, of course. >> [laughter] you. >> history channel. >> i will start by saying cspan. >> what an exciting guy. what a terrific panel we have had. these are the luminaries of this industry cpa, figuring out a way to move forward and be all things to all people. thank you, guys.

we appreciate it [applause] enjoy the rest of the cable show. ♪ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> the couple of things we are covering today in washington -- the senate is back this morning and will take the nomination of leon panetta to be the new pentagon chief. he most recently served as the cia director. we should see a vote on his nomination to be defense secretary today around 4:15 eastern. watch live senate coverage on c- span 2. on c-span 3, several of president obama's ambassador nominations will testify before the senate foreign relations committee. they include m paterson and cu is fortter and kuwait. live coverage is under way at 10:00 eastern. "washington journal" is next and

we will take your phone calls and then republican presidential hopeful john huntsman makes his official presidential announcement at liberty state park in new jersey with live coverage at 10:00 eastern. the houses back in at noon, eastern and legislative work starts at 2:00. they will begin work on 2012 defense spending. live house coverage is here on c-span. >> i have the honor of representing the great people of the state of florida and i am here in the senate. today as the for the first time on this floor on their behalf. >> all 13 freshmen senators have given their speeches on the senate floor. see them at the congressional chronicle, a resource on your elected officials. keep up-to-date c-span.org/ congress. >> coming up this hour, the wisconsin senator would give an updaten