NEW YORK—One of the fall’s largest industry conventions is being ushered in by a new owner with an expanded agenda.
With more than 60 new exhibitors this year, the CCW+SATCON convention is expanding its focus in three primary areas: a reinvigorated focus on content and communication; a honed focus on satellite communications; and renewed support for the deep community that traditionally defined CCW+SATCON.
All this is the result of the purchase of the Content and Communications World (CCW) and the Satellite Communications Conference and Expo (SATCON) event last year by the National Association of Broadcasters, organizer of NAB Show. CCW+SATCON—colocated at the Javits Convention Center, Nov. 12–13—will not only complement NAB’s existing trade shows and events, but breathe new life into the two side-by-side events.
“This gives us an opportunity to give the industry another platform to see new technologies and take part in education programming,” said Chris Brown, executive vice president of NAB Conventions and Business Operations.
John Landgraf, CEO of FX Networks, will keynote the CCW conference.NEW POST-PRODUCTION EVENTS
In addition to CCW and SATCON— which touch on content creation, management and delivery technologies as well as satellite-enabled communications and content delivery—this year the event will usher in the NY Post|Production Conference, which will address editing workflow, motion graphics design, production techniques and social media.
CCW+SATCON will also include the Hollywood IT Society (HITS) Broadcast IT Summit New York. The half day of sessions will jump into the broadcast IT space to address the role that big data plays on the creative process of television programming.
While the show’s core elements of broadcast and satellite remain unchanged, these new elements will give “the East Coast post audience a chance for in-depth training,” Brown said.
The show will also bring back the theater experiences, including the Streaming+OTT Theater and the Production+Post Theater, which will showcase the latest in 4K content, streaming and on-demand video technologies.
One of the biggest events of the show is expected to be the CCW keynote address by FX Networks CEO John Landgraf, who recently oversaw the expansion of FX Networks and the debut of the FXX channel. He plans to touch on entertainment, business and the future of digital on-demand technologies. Aware of the challenges that confront content networks in a multiplatform environment, Landgraf will address issues such as rights protection, programming challenges and effective distribution.
STILL GROWING
More than 7,000 attendees are expected at the event, making it the second largest media, entertainment and communications technology conference in North America, and the only one on the East Coast.
That location plays a large role in its appeal, according to Brown. The show has been successful because of its locale, size and educational opportunities.
“[This event] is a great way for companies in New York and the surrounding region to expose a team to a deeper focus,” Brown said. “It’s also extremely manageable in size. You can take it all in. You’ve got time to dig in with vendors and companies.”
Because of that there’s a strong community aspect to the event. With an active set of advisory boards for both CCW and SATCON and a continued focus on broadcast technology, the event has retained on-the-ground ownership of the real-world issues facing this community.
“As we’ve gotten involved with producing the event, we’ve found an evolved and active group that want to see it succeed and are very invested,” Brown said.
The conferences will showcase sessions that range from OTT technologies to newsgathering advancements. A session on 4K called “UHD: Beyond the Hype” will look at the technical issues of resolution, frame rate and dynamic range as it relates to 4K.
“There’s a lot of discussion around 4K, and this will clear up the myths and focus on facts of what it means for a [broadcaster ’s] operation,” Brown said.
The conferences will also look at the ongoing transition to IP in sessions such as “The IP-Based Facility: Is it for You?” that will look at how realistic it is for facilities to adopt an all-IP routing infrastructure. Other sessions will delve into the standards work being done across the industry and how the newly adopted ATSC 3.0 will move forward in the session “ATSC 3.0: The Next Generation.”
The event itself was launched 12 years ago to address satellite applications for end users, and broadcasters have become a key and growing part of the SATCON audience. The convention evolved to include HD technologies in 2006. Now, the reinvigorated event is taking all of those elements and propelling the show in a new direction.
“At its core, this is a broadcast technology event,” Brown said, comparing it to the singular focus that the original NAB convention had 20 years ago. “Part of what we want to do is maintain that, as well as focus on this core audience.”
To register for CCW+SATCON, visit www.ccwexpo.com.
