Zaslav, Murdoch, Eisner to Keynote NATPE

LOS ANGELES: Among the executives set to participate in the 2010 NATPE Market & Conference are Shine Group’s Elisabeth Murdoch—in a session moderated by World Screen‘s Anna Carugati—Discovery’s David Zaslav and Tornante’s Michael Eisner.

Zaslav, the president and CEO of Discovery Communications, will deliver a keynote during a Think Tank session on Monday morning. Eisner, the CEO of the Tornante Company, will deliver the Creative Keynote on Monday. The International Keynote on Wednesday morning with Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of Shine Group, will be moderated by Anna Carugati, World Screen‘s group editorial director. 

Further highlights include an advertising track in association with Michael Kassan, the chairman and CEO of MediaLink, which will open with Esther Lee, the senior VP of AT&T. Shelly Palmer will deliver the “State of the Digital Union.” Hugh Laurie, David Shore and Katie Jacobs discuss House at Tuesday’s “Coffee With…” session and Roma Khanna, the president of Universal Networks International and Digital Initiatives, talks about international channels at Wednesday’s “Coffee With….”

The theme for this year’s event, which takes place January 25 to 27, is Content, Commerce, Connections. In a conference call with the media, Rick Feldman, the president and CEO of NATPE, explained: "Over the three days we have about 75 events and over 200 people. These are very high-level executives across the board in all businesses that relate to what we’re doing. They all see the value of being able to speak and inform the body populace that comes to NATPE. I think we all know that right now what’s going on is that in a lot of these other conferences that exist…most of the people who are there come from the same discipline. The value of NATPE is that regardless of whether you’re from broadcast or cable or mobile or online or production or distribution or advertisitng or social networking or technology, you’re all there to talk about what’s going on in the business right now, which is that it’s a very uncertain time with a lot of questions. The idea is that NATPE is getting everyone from the various parts of the business to talk together, and hopefully we can supply answers—answers about what kind of creative content is wanted and needed and can be monetized over all these multiple digital distribution streams, how you can harnass that content, how you can make that money. NATPE is always about opportunity."

The show floor will move to ballrooms on the first level of the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, and there are also more suites available at The Hotel. In 2011 and 2012, NATPE will move to Miami’s South Beach, meeting at the Fontainebleu. "We’re going to change how everything gets done in Miami," said Feldman. 

On how attendence is shaping up, Feldman says that numbers are ahead of where they were this time last year, and NATPE is expected to do better than last year, but still not as strong as 2008. "A lot of that has to do with consolidation of the business," he noted.