Powell: ‘Cable’ Doesn’t Quite Cut It

A Q&A with National Cable & Telecommunications Association President and CEO Michael Powell. He has said that the phrase “cable” in NCTA does not convey the “breadth of who we are and what we do.”

But Powell, a self-described “geek” and frustrated artist, recently told the story of how lawyers for the industry’s main trade association came to seek Patent and Trademark Office protection of a potential new moniker. Here’s a clue: He was clueless.

“There is an element of the cable brand I am troubled by,” he said. “I think it is incomplete. I think it has a certain meaning in the minds of consumers and a certain meaning in the minds of policymakers. And I think it underrepresents the breadth of what we are and what we do. We are not some old-fashioned cable industry. We are probably, now, the country’s most sophisticated full-service communications provider.”