Good morning, and thanks very much for that introduction.

I'd like to pause 15 seconds and alert you to the fact that much of my material this morning will be rated G.

Let me start by congratulating Peter Kiley, Steve Jones, and the entire CTPAA Board, for putting together a great conference this year.

It's great to see that Commissioner Adelstein is here with us this morning as well. I'm sure you will join me in expressing appreciation for his willingness to spend some time with us.

I'm also glad to see all of you here. It's obviously a great thing when so many articulate advocates for the industry spend time here in Washington. And we at NCTA appreciate all that you do for our industry.

I look forward to working together to continue developing and delivering a unified message. I've seen public affairs from many vantage points – government service, the military, working on the Hill, and in the private sector. But whatever the industry or organization you represent, there is no substitute for simplicity, repetition, and consistency.

I think we also need to be forthright about how responsible an industry we are. And part of that is ensuring that people understand that once we make a commitment, we keep it. And the group of people on whose shoulders that responsibility rests is sitting in this room.

I know that you all are aware of the voluntary initiatives we announced last week on parental controls. Many of you helped develop those initiatives and for that I thank you.

But this is also something we need to stay on top of.

And the starting place is to recognize that these initiatives are just the latest in a 15 to 16 year effort to address quite legitimate concerns over the impact of television on our children.

Which is why in 1989, the cable industry's education foundation, Cable in the Classroom, began helping teachers in more than 80,000 schools use the educational power of TV to enhance their curriculum.

Why in 1994, we formed our partnership with the National PTA, to roll out media literacy training across the country.

And why, just last year, we created the "Cable Puts You in Control" initiative, where leading operators pledged to provide free channel blocking technology to customers who don't have the means to block unwanted programming from being viewed in their home.

It's also why, just last week, Brian Roberts of Comcast and Judith McHale of Discovery joined me in announcing a major public service and consumer education campaign to help parents better understand how they can take control of their television sets.

Your companies – thousands of local cable systems and more than 100 cable networks – have pledged to create and air public service announcements in airtime valued at 250-million dollars.

Our programming partners are making substantial improvements to the TV Ratings system.

In addition, cable operators, in partnership with National PTA, local PTA chapters, and other community groups, will host more than 100 "Control Your TV" community events across the country during the next 12 months. They'll step up their communications with customers about parental controls, by providing information during installs and upgrades, and putting information on cable billing statements. Through an agreement in principle with retailers such as Circuit City and Best Buy, they'll post information in hundreds of retail stores around the country.

We've made a lot of commitments. Even in Washington, D.C., a quarter of a billion dollars is still considered real value. And this is where you come in.

We need you to become the best advocate within your company, system, or organization, for educating customers about parental controls.

We need you to make sure we deliver on our commitment to run spots.

We need you to help us stage those 100 community events.

We need you to help make sure your installers, technicians, customer service representatives, and yes, your executives, are talking regularly with customers about how easy it is to use parental controls.

You are on the front lines in our effort to educate our viewers and customers about how to take control of their television sets. So, I hope you will let us know how we can help you do this job.

We'll always have hot issues and specific public affairs campaigns like the Take Control campaign. But we shouldn't forget that we have opportunities to tell cable's story every day. And, I would submit, telling this story should be what we think about first because how policymakers react to specific issues will be informed by their understanding of our industry as much if not more than the issue de jour.

My perspective on this is that of someone who had other choices, but who chose to join the cable industry. And I'd like to tell you why I did so.

When I looked at the cable industry, I saw entrepreneurs who embody the best of creativity, risk-taking and innovation. In the beginning, it was a couple of guys taking the few bucks they had and stringing wire, and putting an antenna on the top of a hill. Creating an industry, when no one else saw it coming. More recently, it has been a massive effort to invest to spur this country into the age of broadband today, when others seemed to do nothing but talk about how it would come tomorrow.

I saw an American success story. How many other industries can claim they've added half a million new jobs to the American economy in the last 10 years? How many other industries can claim that their success rests in jobs that are created here in the United States?

I saw an industry that gives back to the communities it serves. We don't just send a signal into a market. We live in our communities, give to local charities, engage in local public affairs, and help weave the fabric of community after community in a thousand different positive ways.

I saw an industry that has completely changed that way we interact with the world by giving us more diversity and more choice. We take for granted that news and sports can be seen 24 hours a day; we hardly notice that family and children's programming is available on different networks every day; and we treat it as obvious that each one of us could have one or two networks that appeal to us in a unique way. And all of this exists because our industry shattered the status quo at a time – can you believe it – when we just all accepted that three networks were somehow a fact of nature.

I saw an industry that has led the way in innovation. Others may deliver video; some deliver phone service; some may deliver high speed internet service. Others say they deliver high definition television; and still others claim that would like to offer video on demand or digital video recorders. And some claim that they will one day offer all of these things and more.

But only the cable industry offers all of these things. And only our industry offers these services today.

This wasn't an accident. It was the result of a decision by the industry to take a risk and invest nearly $100 billion of private capital building a hybrid fiber network. That others want to join in and compete is a reason to stay on our toes, compete and continue to innovate. But we should be clear: we set the pace and we are the standard by which other industries measure their own success.

You all undoubtedly have other, more unique ways to tell this same story. But in some ways it is so obvious to us that we may forget to tell it. I believe we need to make it a priority every day.

Thanks for all you do. I am honored to have the opportunity to work with you as we move forward.