By Jim Barry

The CEA Digital Answer Man.

I was reminded this week on a Media Tour to southern California that — even as the consumer electronics market has grown tenfold over the past quarter century to $170 billion — there can still be a small town feel for some who’ve been involved for lo these many years. It’s a special community almost family we belong to — those of us who are fortunate to spend our careers in the industry. 

Midst the usual TV and radio spots including one with “Consumer Bob” Hansen at KNSD-TV in San Diego with whom I’ve been doing segments for more than a decade there and at CES, I met on separate occasions with Eric Taub, Peter Caranicas, and Brent Butterworth.

Eric is a writer for the New York Times based in Los Angeles, and we noted at lunch over iced tea and salads, how it was remarkable that we had each been in the industry for nearly three decades and had managed not to meet before, although I was certainly familiar with his stuff in the Times and we had lots of industry colleagues, contacts and experiences in common.

The following day I had lunch with Peter Caranicas, recently appointed features editor at Variety in LA, who I knew a lifetime ago in New York when he was at Videography magazine and I was editor of Dealerscope but hadn’t seen in more than 25 years.  We discussed the interrelationship of the movie and consumer electronics industries, of course, but mostly we marveled at the passage of time, the growth and changes in the business since our callow youth and, alas, lamented and toasted those who we knew back then who are no longer with us.

Brent and I worked together at Video Magazine in the early ’90s and we’ve had a small tradition of getting together for a drink and dinner when I’m on the coast ever since he settled out there a while back. He’s now a regular contributor to Sound and Vision Magazine, which is actually in combination with Stereo Review the successor to Video and we had fun catching up.

I suppose this is why many of us enjoy CES so much, even as it’s grown to be such a huge event and the amount of work to be done there can be daunting. If you’ve been in the industry for a long while, it’s like “Old Home Week.”

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