Blazing the High-Tech Trail

Great content may still be king and the key to building audiences in the digital world. But there is also little doubt that massive technological changes have radically changed the way content is distributed and consumed by viewers, making B&C's annual Technology Leadership Award winners more important than ever. Working on the front lines of new technologies and digital products, 2019's group of honorees is helping TV and media companies compete and thrive in a digital world.

This year's award winners make for a diverse group, with executives working at broadcast TV stations, broadcast networks, streaming video services, news organizations and public media. Some bring skills from software companies, broadband services and tech startups to the TV landscape; others are applying technologies to traditional broadcast media in ways that are transforming the TV business. They work in companies large and small, ranging from multibillion-dollar media conglomerates to smaller stations or organizations that must innovate on shoestring budgets.

All of them, though, show that the long tradition of technology innovation in the TV industry is alive and well. Just as broadcast engineers once deployed new technologies to bring color TV to homes all around the U.S. and dramatically improved the way TV and news programming was produced in the 20th century, the Technology Leadership Award winners are pioneering new technologies in the 21st century for subscription video-on-demand services, improved news coverage and innovative digital products.

This year's award winners will be honored at an award ceremony hosted by B&C on April 8, the first day of the NAB Show in Las Vegas. For more on the free event, go to techleadershipawards.com.

SEAN CURTIS

Senior VP, Services and Data Engineering Disney Streaming Services

Sean Curtis lands on this year's list of Technology Leadership Award winners with a record of innovation that includes some of the most important developments in the tech and TV industries early OTT streaming-media efforts, pioneering TV everywhere products, direct-to-consumer subscription VOD services and the groundbreaking use of cloud technologies to deliver content to more platforms.

Like many of this year's winners, Curtis traces many of his accomplishments to the tech teams he's worked with over the years at companies such as MLB Advanced Media, Sling Media, Dish Network, Amazon and Disney Streaming Services. I get a little squirrely about awards because you are always relying so much on great teams, he said. Helping to build those teams and instilling a consumer focus within their members are among his proudest accomplishments, he added.

After earning a bachelor's degree in computer engineering at Villanova University, Curtis worked as an advanced avionics technician in the U.S. Navy between 1990 and 1998 and then for a series of tech companies before moving into the media sector in 2001. He then took at job MLB Advanced Media, where he worked his way up to VP of engineering by 2004.

In 2007, Curtis moved to Sling Media as VP of web technology, where he worked on groundbreaking technology that allowed users to access their Dish Network pay TV content outside the home. Then he worked on a variety of innovative TV everywhere, cloud, VOD and IPTV projects in various roles at Dish, Sling TV and Amazon.

In 2014, he returned to MLB, where he was given increasingly senior roles as the operation was renamed BAMTech and then acquired by The Walt Disney Co. He took his current post in September 2017.

During this time, the list of innovative products pouring out of his tech teams includes pioneering direct-to-consumer service HBO Now, digital products for the National Hockey League, MLB.TV, the launch of ESPN and the company's embrace of cloud technologies.

Cloud technologies have opened up a whole new way of thinking about innovation for new OTT services like ESPN , Curtis said. ESPN is a really exciting place for us to be in terms of moving the needle with personalization and the responses we are getting from consumers in terms of usage and subscriptions.

Curtis' experience will also play a major role in the increasingly competitive SVOD space, as his tech teams turn their attention to Disney , launching later this year. There is a lot of excitement in our teams about that, he said. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

MARC DEBEVOISE

President and COO | CBS Interactive

Marc DeBevoise's successful efforts are a prime example of how big broadcast brands like CBS are thriving in the digital world by successfully launching streaming services like CBS All Access and CBSN.

Not surprisingly, DeBevoise lists the internet as his biggest career influence. It has really shaped all of our lives and certainly my career, he said.

Early on, DeBevoise hoped to find his m tier as a filmmaker. But a summer spent making some not-so-great films at New York University convinced him that his future was in management. After earning his bachelor's degree at Tufts University in economics and computer science, he joined Hambrecht & Quist in 1998 as a financial analyst specializing in technology and media. He joined JP Morgan's technology, media and telecommunications investment banking division in 2002.

After earning his MBA in finance, entertainment, media and technology from NYU, he honed his business development and digital skills at NBCUniversal between 2004 and 2005 and then as Starz's head of media from 2006 to 2011. Those successful efforts led CBS to recruit him in 2011 as senior VP and GM of entertainment for CBS Digital Media. He was promoted to executive VP/GM o in 2012 and to his current post in 2016.

DeBevoise and his teams launched the CBS All Access subscription streaming service and 24-hour digital news service CBS

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