David Bishop, President, Worldwide, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, will make the opening keynote speech at this year’s Digital Entertainment conference, organised by Screen Digest, taking place in Paris on 12-13 March.

Bishop, who oversees all aspects of Sony’s worldwide home entertainment division, including sales, marketing and operations, is wiith Sony Pictures since 2006. Initially appointed as President of Worldwide Brand Integration for Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE), he was responsible for the integration of MGM assets over the various SPE worldwide distribution entities. Prior to joining SPE, Bishop spent more than 15 years at MGM Home Entertainment.

Bishop became the first President of the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) during his tenure at MGM. “His current role at the heart of the studio behind Blu-ray means he is ideally placed to open this year’s conference with a wide-ranging speech that will outline Sony’s vision of a high definition future and assess the prospects for home entertainment – whether packaged or digitally-delivered – over the next few years, says the organisers.

This is a change to the previously announced line-up that should have seen the keynote speech delivered by Kelley Avery, President, Paramount Worldwide Home Entertainment, who had to pull out.

The conference’s closing session on will feature a consumer panel, set up with new media market consumer research experts Interpret. Building on Interpret’s seminal 2009 State of UK Digital Media Study on consumer attitudes toward digital media and home entertainment, the ‘live’ panel will bring together five carefully-selected consumers, each representing one of the consumer segments developed from Interpret’s quantitative research.

“Consumers today are faced with more choices than ever before for accessing movies and TV programmes, making it more important than ever for the industry to understand how consumers really feel about the proliferating media options around them,” says Ben Keen, Screen Digest’s Chief Analyst. “ We are delighted to be working with Interpret to give delegates the opportunity to hear directly from consumers - no matter how unsettling their views may be.”

Other confirmed speakers to date include Eddie Cunningham, President, Universal Pictures International Entertainment; Edward Catchpole, SVP Toys & Electronics, Disney Consumer Products Europe; Jim Taylor, Chief Technologist, Sonic Solutions; Justin Marciano, Managing Director, Revolver Entertainment; Aodan Coburn, EVP Worldwide Operations, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment; Michael Comish, CEO, BlinkBox Entertainment; Olivier Van Wynendaele, Assistant General Manager Marketing Europe, Toshiba Information Systems UK; Jean-Michel Cathonnet, VP European Logistics & Distribution, Cinram; John Calkins, EVP, Corporate Development, Sony Pictures Entertainment; Chuck Parker, EVP International Operations, Technicolor Home Entertainment Services; Christopher Neely, VP European Operations, Sonic Solutions; Isaac Larbi, CEO, Sofatronic USA

Story filed 29.01.09