Still Something for Everyone at Cable Show : Marketing: The zestiness once associated with the exhibition is gone. The industry is too large to be considered the young upstart any longer.

Howie Mandel was over at the Showtime exhibit, joking about his days as a salesman in Canada. Miss December was autographing photos of herself at the Playboy at Night booth while the Comedy Network distributed packages of Chuckles candy.

But this was not enough to keep George Opacic of DCA Cablevision, the company that provides cable TV to Rancho Cucamonga, from being a little nostalgic about the old days of the Western Cable Show.

“All the glitter seems to have gone,” he said.

It was like past shows in most respects: Cable industry executives converged in Anaheim this week to check out new cable channels and programs, chew the fat with friends and say terrible things about their rivals, the broadcast networks.

Across the vast space of the Anaheim Convention Center, exhibitors displayed samples of their new shows and handed out pens, breath sprays and keychains with their logos on them while trying to sign up buyers. There also were exhibitors selling technical equipment to cable system operators.

There were a lot of places where people could win something like a T-shirt by throwing a basketball through a hoop. Nonetheless, the zestiness once associated with the cable show was gone, a sampling of veterans said. The Wild, Wild Western Cable Show it wasn’t. The cable industry has grown too big and is bringing in revenues too large to be considered the young upstart any longer. Serious business was being discussed at the three-day affair, which ends today.

“There used to be a million new gimmicks,” said Herbert L. Golden of the Bankers Trust Company, which lends money to cable companies. “Everything was new. It was all exciting.”

Now, he says, because of the industry’s success, the technical equipment on display at the show offers “minor improvments” at best. No more of the grandiose breakthroughs that have helped the industry explode. And he noted that the mom-and-pop cable operators, who ushered in the cable era running small outfits in their local areas, have been “folded into bigger systems.” A lot of the small operators who sold their companies “are living in Hawaii or the Caribbean now,” he said. “They made a lot of money.”

Also noticing changes was Stephen Abram, vice president of Wellington-Ross Insurance Services, an Encino firm that insures cable companies. “There’s a lot less flash,” he said. “The business is maturing.”

As Abram sees it, the layout on the exhibition floor is a reflection of the business in general. “There’s bigger booths,” he said. “And less of them.”

The cable operators have been been consolidating, with the smaller companies gobbled up by the giants. Meanwhile, a different, but comparable trend has marked the programming side, with the biggest entertainment companies adding to their menu of cable offerings.

Under one roof at the cable show were MTV, Nickelodeon/Nick at Night, VH-1, the forthcoming HA! comedy network, Showtime and The Movie Channel. All are owned by Viacom International Inc. Ted Turner oversees the Cable News Network, CNN Headline News, Superstation TBS and one-year-old Turner Network Television.

There was a pervasive feeling this year that cable had finally grown up. Cable now reaches more than half the TV homes in America. And while the broadcast networks’ share of viewers has steadily declined in recent years, cable’s audience share has risen.

Still, the cable show was not exactly a stroll through a widget factory, either. The industry still has room for entrepreneurs ready to try something different or find an untapped niche. The people trying to launch the Sci-Fi Channel were trying to sign up buyers. At the American Movie Classics booth, which not only looked like a ‘50s diner, but actually offered pie, a trio of waitresses crooned oldies.

Bravo, the highbrow network, remained true to form, displaying an exhibit of modern art. The Weather Channel people showed lots of storm footage on their TV monitors. Black Entertainment Television brought in Tim and Daphne Maxwell Reid to announce that the channel had purchased reruns of “Frank’s Place.”

Perhaps the spirit that made cable what it is today was best exemplified by the people at the Prevue Guide. At first reluctant to break their news prematurely, they confided quietly, but proudly, that they were now reaching 15 million viewers who could turn to their channel at any time--to find out what was on all the other channels.