Event Preview: ABTA 2013 Expo & Conference


NEW YORK: ABTA’s 21st edition will take place August 6 to 8 at the Transamérica Expo Center in São Paulo, Brazil.

The event is set to welcome participants from more than ten countries, including Germany, France, the U.S., China, Japan, England, Spain, Taiwan and Peru.

“ABTA 2013 is an event that is divided into a congress and an expo, this way, the attendees can watch and participate in debates about the main current challenges, the future of pay TV and its range of services, with the most important players in the market,” explains André Mermelstein, the editorial director for Converge Comunicações and responsible for the organization of the ABTA 2013 Expo & Conference. “On the other hand, the expo is an interaction space for networking and innumerous other business opportunities, presentations and contacts with new technologies, releases of new content, et cetera.”

This year, Brazil’s Minister of Communications, Paulo Bernardo, will inaugurate the event. He will be accompanied by Oscar Simões, the managing director of Associação Brasileira de TV Por Assinatura (ABTA), and João Rezende, the president of ANATEL (the Brazilian Telecommunications Regulatory Agency). The theme of the opening ceremony will be A New Cycle of Growth, during which the Minister of Communications will share his points of view about the current situation and the future prospects of the industry in Brazil.

“Also, all the main CEOs and executives of Brazil’s pay-TV market will be attending, in addition to several international guests,” says Mermelstein. Among them are Carlos Moltini, the CEO of Cablevisión; Juan Vásquez, the VP of strategy at Liberty Global; Marcel Fenez, the head of media and communications at PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers); and Adriana Menezes Whiteley, the head of strategic consulting for communications at Farncombe, a digital technology and strategy consulting firm.

The expo has closely followed the growth and evolution of Brazil’s pay-TV market, “which is now the seventh biggest pay-TV market worldwide, with more than 17 million homes with pay TV, more than 6 million broadband clients and 5 million telecommunication clients,” Mermelstein says.

This year’s program will include five main panels, in addition to several thematic blocs of lectures. The panel sessions on the planner are: A Global View of the Future of Pay TV, Advertising at a Time of Content Diversification, New Prospects for Monetizing Content, Content: The New Opportunities That Are Opening Up, and The New Networks and Growth of Broadband Supply. There will also be a closing panel, focused on pay TV and sports.

The event’s organizers highlight that the expo and conference take place at a time when pay TV, broadband and telephony are converging and have consolidated a victorious cycle of growth driven by the combined offer of services, competition and innovation. They emphasize that HD content is already constantly present in Brazilian households, pay TV is present in all municipalities through DTH, and cable and fiber networks are expanding more and more in the cities.