Another NAB Show has come and gone and thankfully my feet are still talking to me (my sleep-deprived brain, well that’s another story, give me a couple more days). But I’m still coherent enough to share my thoughts about our industry’s largest annual gathering and wanted to do so while my memories are still fresh.
This year was my 30th show and I celebrated my milestone like I mark every show, talking with exhibitors and attendees and gathering their thoughts about new products, services and the trends they are seeing.
This year also marks the 103rd such NAB Show, which began at the dawn of broadcasting in the early 1920s. Radio (and eventually television) are the original “mass electronic media” and this year’s show demonstrated how resilient we are as well as how the show itself is adapting to those changes.
The Reality of ‘Swipe Left’
The NAB Show focused heavily on the content creator economy this year, featuring conversations from the people who are driving the next generation of media. Creators of all shapes and sizes have more options than ever to inform and entertain through outlets such as YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.
In most of those conversations, the new generation of creators (of all ages, by the way) found that they have a lot in common with the generations who were informed and influenced by the evolution of television, in particular; the desire for “broadcast quality,” which so many of us still consider the gold standard.
And when I refer to that term I’m not talking about traditional methods of talking heads, static backdrops and old-style Hollywood production styles, or even video resolutions. No, today’s viewers have far more choices than ever before and that media has to grab your attention immediately. The very definition of television has changed over time (the subject of my first editorial for TV Tech when I started back with the magazine back in 2001) and the demands have become higher.
The meaning of “broadcast quality” has changed and while today’s creators don’t want to necessarily recreate the traditional TV show, their goal is the same: to keep the viewers’ attention, especially since more and more are viewing content on a variety of screens.
After all, 50 years ago, most consumers would have to physically get up off the couch to change the channel; today all they have to do is swipe left.
In essence, broadcast quality is no longer a set of specifications, but rather a mindset to which creators are approaching on their own terms. Broadcasters are content creators too but as gatekeepers, they’ve opened those gates to a wider community.
Television production was already becoming more “democratized” two decades ago when the dawn of YouTube gave a voice to anyone with an IP connection and digital software-based editing platforms were becoming more widely available. Since the launch of Youtube and social media over the past two decades, we’ve seen an explosion of new production styles that have eventually forced both the TV and film communities to adapt.
The NAB Show has had to evolve to meet the crop of new content creators and the show floor still had a plethora of high-end technology demanded by media companies worldwide.
But those same exhibitors—from AWS, Sony, Blackmagic Design and For-A to Shure and Audio Technica to name just a few—were also talking about new audio techniques and vertical video. In essence, anyone who develops media technology was showcasing (or at least discussing) new media creation technologies and techniques designed for this rapidly expanding media.
I spoke with one such content creator prior to the show. Jefferson Graham, host of the PhotowalksTV travel series on Youtube talked about how having his show broadcast on Scripps stations on a weekly basis impacted his career.
Jefferson said the relationship with Scripps pays off when he visits communities where Scripps owns a local TV station. “I get to work with some of the local people there, so big shout out to WCPO in Cincinnati!” he said. “They spent a day with me shooting and then I also went on the air and did a segment with them, that was fantastic,” adding that he also worked with local broadcasters in Detroit, San Diego and Missoula Mont. as well.
But Content is Still King
The NAB Show’s theme this year was about “unveiling powerful new tools and technologies that put storytelling in everyone’s hands,” according to Karen Chupka, executive vice president of NAB Show, and overall I think they did a great job guiding the discussions and giving those storytellers the opportunity to test drive those new tools on the exhibit floor.
I’ve seen enough NAB Shows to understand the need to adapt and to change. Over the past 30-plus years, I’ve seen the lines blurring between “professional” broadcasters and the creators (who remembers the term “prosumer” which was all the rage 15-20 years ago?), so the trend is not necessarily new. But like my editorial of 25 years ago, when I tried to anticipate the popularity of the Internet and its impact on television, the reality of this evolution just took a bit longer than I anticipated.
Today, it’s no longer a question of if those worlds converge—it’s happening in real time, and NAB Show remains one of the few places where you can see it unfold.
The NAB Show entered my bloodstream three decades ago and with nearly half of this year’s attendees first-timers, it will probably do so for many of them as well. But unlike me, they’re seeing a radically different media landscape that no longer requires a massive budget and where the distinction between broadcaster and creator matters less.
