Monday, January 6th, 2020

2:15 - 3:15 PM

Session II, C-Space at CES

Aria Resort & Casino, Level 3, Juniper 1

Internet TV and OTT: Programming Everywhere

The proliferation of TV is pushing video to an unlimited audience and the Streaming Wars are on! The TV industry has merged into mega-conglomerates and invested billions in additional programming – the New Golden Age for TV programming and 24/7 viewing.

Soumya Sriraman, Founding President & CEO, BritBox

Colby Smith, Senior Vice President and General Manager, ABC News Digital and Live Streaming, Disney DTCI

Pamela Drucker Mann, Global Chief Revenue Officer, Conde Nast

Karen Leever, President of U.S. Digital Products and Marketing, Discovery

Markus Fritz, Executive Vice President, Commercial Development & Strategic Partnerships, Eutelsat

Matt Smith, Executive Director, Business Development & Strategy, Comcast Technology Solutions

Terry S. Bienstock, CEO, Mobilactive Media, LLC., Moderator

Colby Smith serves as Senior Vice President and General Manager of ABC News Digital and Live Streaming. He reports into Salil Mehta, General Manager, Digital Media, for Direct-to-Consumer & International at The Walt Disney Company. In this position Smith manages Disney’s digital news brands – ABC News, Good Morning America, FiveThirtyEight and the 24/7 streaming channel ABC News

Live. He oversees business operations, publishing strategy, partnerships, audience development, distribution and marketing. In this integral role Smith has retooled ABC News’ content and distribution strategy and revamped its suite of products to grow reach, engagement and monetization around the world. In 2018, he spearheaded the launch of ABC News Live, a new 24/7 channel for breaking news and live events. In one year, it has become America’s #1 streaming news channel with distribution on Hulu, The Roku Channel, and Facebook Watch. In that same year he oversaw the launch of a new digital portfolio for “Good Morning America,” which has grown to become one of the largest global lifestyle brands for young women. Smith also led the integration of FiveThirtyEight into ABC News to supercharge its political coverage with new real-time election night forecasts. Smith joined The Walt Disney Company in 2011 with Disney – ABC Television’s business development team where he focused on mobile products. In 2015 he was promoted to Vice President of ABC News Digital, where he instituted a new data-driven approach to editorial and product design to drive monthly video views from 60 million to over 1 billion. Under Smith’s leadership ABC News received the prestigious Edward R. Murrow award for ‘Best Website’ for the first time since 2001 and became the first digital team to win back-to-back News and Documentary Emmy Awards in the history of the TV news industry in 2016 and 2017.  Smith’s career in media began at KPSP in Palm Desert, California as Senior Executive Producer. He is a graduate of Stanford University and received his MBA from UCLA.

Pamela Drucker Mann oversees all ad sales and ad product strategies globally, and works with commercial leads across the company's 31 markets to drive overall ad, agency and B2B revenue. She has played an integral part in leveraging brands and scale to develop new revenue streams and opportunities for advertisers. Drucker Mann has twice been named to Adweek’s list of the 50 most indispensable executives, and is an Advertising Age Media Maven, 2015 Advertising Age Publishing Executive of the Year, an Adweek First Mover and a 2016 Folio Top Women in Media in the Entrepreneur category.

Karen Leever serves as President of U.S. Digital Products and Marketing.  In this role, Leever oversees the company’s suite of 18 TV Everywhere GO apps and manage the design, development, engineering, analytics, operations and monetization of the company’s growing U.S digital businesses. Additionally, she spearheads Discovery’s domestic direct-to-consumer endeavors. Leever reports to Peter Faricy, CEO, Global Direct to Consumer, Discovery. Leever most recently served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of Digital Media at Discovery. In this capacity, she was responsible for extending the reach of Discovery’s expansive digital brands and businesses in the U.S. She launched the company’s mobile-first suite of TV Everywhere GO apps, which now generate more than 40M streams per month and boast 40,000 titles of live and on-demand content. Leever also led strategy, design and development for the GO apps and was responsible for driving design and development of Discovery’s network websites. She implemented the company’s first full-service digital agency, focusing on acquisition and content strategy, product ideation and development, analytics and tech. Before joining Discovery, Leever spent 10 years at DIRECTV, where she served most recently as Senior Vice President, Digital and Direct Sales, driving the satellite television company’s business. While at DIRECTV, she also drove new subscription acquisition growth, digital product strategy and all cross-platform digital efforts. Prior to DIRECTV, Leever led the planning, launch and operations for a revamped kmart.com as Vice President of E-commerce and Marketing. Earlier, she spent more than a decade in electronic TV retailing both at HSN and QVC, overseeing website design, messaging, pricing and programming strategies. Leever currently sits on the boards of Express, Inc. and Group Nine Media. She is a graduate of Lehigh University and lives with her husband and two children in Summit, New Jersey. Leever is based at Discovery’s global headquarters in New York City.

Soumya Sriraman is Founding President & CEO for BritBox, a joint venture between BBC Studios, the subsidiary arm of BBC, and ITV, the UK’s biggest commercial broadcaster. In this role, Sriraman is responsible for the overall strategy and operation of BritBox. With her focus on bringing the best British content to the service through acquisitions, licensing, co-productions, and key partnerships, Sriraman launched and continues to grow the channel. Her direction has led to over 650,000 subscribers in less than 3 years with an emphasis on reach, engagement, and retention. Multi-Channel and Broadcast Magazine recognized Sriraman for her incredible work at BritBox, and awarded her, along with an exclusive class of her peers, the inaugural Wonder Woman in Streaming Award. Previously, Sriraman served as Executive Vice President of Franchise and digital enterprises at BBC Worldwide North America (now BBC Studios Americas), where she expanded brand platforms, maximized distribution outlets, developed new product and grew the home entertainment and licensing businesses to record breaking heights, adding a new distribution line-up of theatrical events for the key BBC brands including Doctor Who and BBC Earth. Prior to joining BBC Worldwide North America, Sriraman was President and Chief Executive Officer for Palisades Tartan US and UK where she spearheaded several Oscar Award-nominated/winning films, relaunched the Tartan brand, and expanded its distribution footprint globally. Sriraman has been named among Home Media Magazine’s 40 Under 40 executives and held positions at Warner Home Video and Universal Home Entertainment. She is a member of the British American Business Association and is delighted to serve on the Advisory Board of the Bentonville Film Festival.

Markus Fritz joined Eutelsat in June 2013 as Director of Commercial Strategy and Marketing. In this role, Markus is responsible for further developing Eutelsat’s commercial strategy internationally, including market development and research, business intelligence, product management and pricing as well as marketing communications. He is also responsible for developing strategic marketing partnerships with customers. Markus has over 20 years of international experience in the satellite, ICT and consumer electronics industries. He has also provided strategic and commercial services across EMEA and South-East Asia and held leading roles at Executive Board Level of ZVEI, the Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association and was also Vice President of Digital Europe, an association representing the digital technology industry. https://lu.linkedin.com/in/markusfritz/

Matt Smith, Executive Director, Business Development & Strategy, Comcast Technology Solutions: Matt Smith is a recognized digital media industry evangelist and thought leader, having spoken at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show, IBC, TVNext, Streaming Media East & West, NewTeeVee and Digital Hollywood among others. Matt has held a variety of key roles in video technology in his career.  He’s presently involved in Strategy and Business Development for Comcast Technology Solutions, helping to solve the most complex problems facing video providers today, leveraging the massive scale and expertise of the Comcast platform. Previously, Matt was part of the leadership team at Brightcove, one of the largest online video platforms on the market. He also served as senior staff and Chief Evangelist for Anvato – a turnkey video platform solution that was acquired by Google in 2016. Prior to Anvato, Matt was Vice President, Technology for Chideo – a next generation network for charitable giving, connecting fans with the personalities they follow and providing exclusive media experiences on any screen.  Chideo is founded by Internet pioneer and billionaire philanthropist Todd Wagner. Previously, Matt was Vice President, Internet Television at Envivio, Smith worked closely with premier customers and technology partners like Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, to ensure that key digital media strategies are carefully planned and brought to market quickly & successfully. In addition to his architectural duties, Matt has deep expertise in the adaptive bitrate technologies that are revolutionizing the streaming and digital media spaces. Prior to joining Envivio, Smith was an Architect at Cisco Systems and Vice President and Chief Systems Architect at Inlet Technologies. Prior to Inlet, Smith served as a key video architect and evangelist for Yahoo!, where he worked for 9 years, designing, delivering and managing leading-edge video compression technologies and workflows to execute live events and create other digital media offerings. Prior to Yahoo!, Smith spent several years at NBC, first at the affiliate level and later with the network.

Terry S. Bienstock, CEO, Mobilactive Media, LLC.: a New Jersey-based distributor of managed application publishing and secure remote access solutions for business and consumer markets. WorldExtend has revolutionary products to deliver to a business a low cost software-based VPN, and has developed a virtual computer on a TV set to bridge the Digital Divide. He also manages and advises other ventures relating to new media platforms, such as Video-on-Demand, digital video recorders, broadband and mobile services. Prior to this, he served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Law and Government Affairs, for Comcast Cable Communications in Philadelphia. In this position, he maintained business responsibility for Comcast's Video on Demand platform, Comcast University and claims management. He was also responsible for overseeing the Law department for the country's leading cable and broadband communications provider, advising senior management on legal and business issues, and for Comcast's state and local government affairs in the 5000 communities and 41 states in which it did business. Prior to joining Comcast, for 23 years Bienstock was in private practice, serving as lead counsel on numerous major communications, First Amendment and property rights cases for most of the top media and cable companies, and lead high visibility cases, from the first fully televised trial in the U.S. to the Noriega tapes case for CNN. He pioneered litigation in the cable television industry for operators, programmers and equipment manufacturers, and successfully prosecuted cases on theft of service, copyright and trademark, premises access, franchising, franchise modifications, transfers, renewals, leased access and other constitutional and Cable Act issues. He has over 100 reported decisions to his name. A graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1975 and the Rutgers-Camden School of Law in 1978, Bienstock has authored several articles in leading legal publications on cable issues such as theft of service, franchising and access to premises. He regularly lectures at numerous national trade associates and legal conferences on various communications, media, regulatory, law department management and litigation topics, and at business conferences on new media topics