CES 2015

For broadcasters to discover the newest gadgets likely to benefit TV stations, you had to trudge the aisles of the LVCC’s North and South Halls and adjacent hotel exhibit halls. For that’s where the buried treasures were to be found (like this iRig Mic Field add-on microphone for iPhones and iPads). Here’s a sampling.

Convergence of traditional TV and digital media is still hard to come by. “We are not dealing with convergence anywhere that we should,” says Irwin Gotlieb, global chairman of Group M, speaking at a Consumer Electronics Show panel. “Business practices have always been different. TV in each country is different.” He says that legacy problems remain. “We have to work around those issues.”

FCC chair Tom Wheeler said he’s optimistic that spectrum auctions would begin in early 2016 as planned, though he was “disappointed that the broadcasters have slowed things down by filing suit.” NAB’s Dennis Wharton denied it. “Our lawsuit is narrowly targeted, and we are seeking an expedited review to make it happen quickly,” he said. “If we wanted to delay the auction, we wouldn’t have put it on the fast track.”

CBS President-CEO Les Moonves raged against the traditional ratings metrics on Wednesday during his Consumer Electronics Show keynote speech in Las Vegas. “Overnight ratings are worthless right now,” Moonves said. “We have to be more patient. Our information now coming from so many different places, over much longer time.”

Unbundling and a la carte were forbidden words in the traditional video world a few years ago. However, with Dish recently announcing its Sling TV streaming service, cable nets launching streaming options and a slew of online video providers changing the competitive space in video, unbundling and creating consumer-friendly TV packages are expected to happen sooner or later, speakers said at a CES panel in Las Vegas.

Traditional TV is far from dead, but these days viewers care less about watching shows live and even prefer saving certain series to watch all at once in an evening or weekend of binge-watching. Online video will account for a third of all video viewing in 2020, up from about 10% in 2013, predicts The Diffusion Group, a research firm that specializes in Internet video. So how to keep the television set, that focal point of the American living room for decades, relevant? Design for online video.

Advances in almost every facet of consumer electronics — everything from robotics to drones to wearable “quantified self” technologies to the ubiquitous Internet of Things — are on hand here this week as the Consumer Electronics Association’s annual CES conference is poised to kick off, but it’s an old consumer favorite — television, albeit a new-and-improved version — that is projected to be the next big thing.

CEO Kazuo Hirai, who hasn’t spoken about publicly about the hack before, opened a press event at the International CES trade show in Las Vegas by saying he “would be remiss” if he didn’t mention the controversy over the Sony comedy, The Interview. Hirai did not offer any new information about the hack, but said Monday evening that freedom of speech and expression are “very important” to Sony and its entertainment business.

Forget the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Netflix said today at the International CES consumer electronics confab, that it will start to endorse TV sets “to help consumers identify televisions built for a superior Internet TV experience.”

Here are the television-related highlights from the International CES gadget show in Las Vegas on Monday. The four-day show formally opens on Tuesday.

CES 2015 kicked off on Sunday afternoon with an overview of the state of the consumer electronics industry given by Shawn Dubravac, CEA chief economist, and Steve Koenig, CEA, director, industry analysis. Koenig focused on the economic side of things, announcing that the global tech marketplace rose about one percent in 2014 to just above $1 trillion. As for 2015, expect mature markets to be down 9% and developing markets to be up 11% and simply lead spending as a result of population growth.

CES 2015 kicked off on Sunday afternoon with an overview of the state of the consumer electronics industry given by Shawn Dubravac, CEA chief economist, and Steve Koenig, CEA, director, industry analysis. Koenig focused on the economic side of things, announcing that the global tech marketplace rose about one percent in 2014 to just above $1 trillion. As for 2015, expect mature markets to be down 9% and developing markets to be up 11% and simply lead spending as a result of population growth.

For the last few years 4K “Ultra HD” televisions have been displayed at CES, but in 2015 they’ll dominate — not just on the show floor, but on showroom floors everywhere throughout the year.