The New Year’s champagne has barely gone flat before the tech world shifts into CES, the consumer electronics mega-conference that has grown, hydra-like, to encompass media, telecommunications, automotive, health care and just about any other industry that that grazes against technology in consumer devices.
To any broadcaster attending this cacophonous tumble of conferences, exhibition floors and suite meetings, it can be challenging to tease out the industry’s more important narrative strands. But CES 2020, which runs from Jan. 7 to 10 in Las Vegas, can be distilled into some key areas through which broadcasters can elbow their way.
“For broadcasters, the starting point for seeing things geographically is going to be Central Hall because the bigger brands that are doing TVs and entertainment devices are there,” says Brian Markwalter, SVP of research and standards at the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which presents CES. “That is the best way to understand where TV manufacturers are going.”