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When HBO confirmed in October that this year's Western Show would be its last, it was confirming what most people already knew: The cable shows now belong to the techies.

Not long ago, the programmers ruled the big shows, throwing lavish parties, bringing celebrities to the exhibit floor and holding press conferences that attracted dozens of reporters. The parties are scaled back, the celebs are vanishing, and the Los Angeles Clippers win more times than the programmers meet the press.

What's happened? Broadband has taken over. Much of the action is at the broadband booths, where cable operators, Silicon Valley denizens and the money people ogle the latest hardware and software -- or at least try and figure it all out. To many people, all the interactive GUIs (graphic user interface.) all seem to look the same and pretty much run the same applications (e-commerce, Internet, VOD, e-mail, advertising, etc.), even as the interactive vendors explain in knowledgable but slightly superior tones how their product is the best.

This makes Cable World's Broadband Handbook all the more indispensable this year. In years past, the trades would publish programmers handbooks -- or at least guides to new, wannabe networks. Those have disappeared. Broadband is king, and since universal delivery and adoption of most of these services is still some time away, content is taking a back seat to technology and applications on the show floor. You'll see some content at the cable networks' booths, but QuokkaSports.com, to take one content company, is not quite ready to exhibit at a cable show.

(One note on the Handbook: Pure play broadband content companies are absent because there are so many of them.)

Yet the scores of companies that will enable these broadband services, either through encryption, billing, integration, end-to end solutions, etc., are all over the place.

My theory as to why these booths are so popular is that many attendees -- the technically challenged ones -- have no idea what these companies do and drop by Mindport to figure out what its trade ads really mean.

As usual, we will concede that this listing is by no means a universal one. Anyone missing can e-mail us, and we'll include them in the Handbook's listing on our Web site. Also, production deadlines could have led to errors in the personnel section if executives left in recent weeks. Please e-mail us with any errors of omission or fact.

Looking at the list this year compared to a year ago, several things stick out.

First, some companies have disappeared as the natural evolution of any technology takes its victims. Liberate bought Morecom, OpenTV took over Spyglass, and many other smaller companies were similarly snapped up.

Strategist Stuart Lipson notes that companies are faced with "make or buy decisions." As the businesses get more real and players deliver broader and deeper solutions, Lipson points out, they have to either produce the product themselves or acquire companies that have that capability.

Secondly, the broadband industry is still rather unformed. "There are so many vendors in search of a business," says Gary Arlen, head of Arlen Communications. As the downfall of the Internet stocks have shown us, a good product doesn't necessarily mean there's a solid business model behind it.

The demand curve for all these services is also a moving target. There is a lot of money being bet that people will click on an icon to buy Regis' tie. Those investments are reflected in the scores of companies listed in this Handbook.

Some of the individual companies are interesting by themselves. Several years ago few people thought Wink or Worldgate would still be around fighting the big guys. Surely Microsoft should have eaten WorldGate's lunch by now, but Hal Krisbergh is playing all his cards in order to remain a relevant player.

Wink's interactive advertising platform won a trial in Time Warner Cable's New York City system but you would hardly know it by the level of promotion Time Warner is doing.

Familiar names crop up in new situations. Sharon Brown, formerly at TCI, is at OpenTV. Glenn Jones is running Jones Cyber Solutions. Robert Clasen, the former Comcast executive, is fighting for ICTV. Paul Sagan, formerly of Time Warner, is running Akamai. New times, new opportunities for everyone.

And there are the middleware companies. As one executive told a Cable World reporter, if you ask 10 people the definition of middleware, you'll get 12 answers. It,s a browser; it's the software that sits on top of the operating system; and on and on. The definition really does depend on which company you ask, since they have different theories on the best way to bring interactivity to the TV and what the consumer really wants.

Check out the companies on our list and tell us how many definitions you hear at the show. Just keep an eye out for the programmers: They are an endangered species at these shows.