Vegas Recap: Data, Podcasts, And The NAB Effect

A sure sign that a convention is encountering an existential crisis is when the slogan for this year's edition is the same slogan as last year's, especially if that slogan is, shall we say, lame. And so this year's NAB Show slogan was "The M.E.T. Effect," a meaningless phrase which does not mean "Noah Syndergaard's pitching tonight" but instead means "Media. Entertainment. Technology." and is supposed to mean that the three are converging, or intersecting, or something like that. I got the opposite impression this year. Okay, I'll explain.

The NAB Show, in recent years, has been repositioned to try and lure content creators like Internet video producers and movie people to the show, perhaps to replace the laid-off television engineers who used to come. That was a promising move, even if it pretty much abandoned the "Broadcasters" part of NAB, but, this year, the place seemed kind of empty. The show covered less space -- no more big-hall events at the adjacent Westgate, booths seemingly spaced out with wider aisles to fill out the halls, shockingly short lines at the Starbucks between the North and Central Halls -- and there were few panels and sessions that qualified as Standing Room Only. Even the main-event "We Are Broadcasters Celebration" with FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai congratulating himself and the Crystal Awards and other random elements patched together from the old radio, TV, and engineering luncheons had empty seats. You'd have to have trucked in a load of bees to feel a buzz in those rooms.

As for convergence, I felt more of a divergence, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing. There was a very good but sparsely attended podcast track for audio content creators and those interested in helping make that industry a real live grown-up industry, which it slowly but surely is becoming. But as for the radio-centric panels, the main thing I came away thinking is that among the management class, there's a realization that their business future might be tied to the buzzword "Big Data." After years of watching Facebook and others clean their clocks, it's finally dawning on them that, you know, we're all sitting on listener databases and we have loyal audiences from whom we, too, can glean data that advertisers want to see. And we have apps that can provide more data, and if something like NextRadio can take off -- if they can convince Apple that an FM tuner chip in iPhones is worth doing and convince all the carriers to activate all the FM chips in Android phones, and make NextRadio or something like it the default app (and thus saving bandwidth costs for streaming, a big problem in their minds) -- they can generate attributable measurement that generates revenue.

This means radio companies' missions will take on a different look. This could be promising if they realize that offering better content, content that commands consumer loyalty and offers an attractive alternative to the burgeoning on-demand universe, is the key to collecting that data -- the data means less if the audience isn't growing. Or they can continue cutting bodies, voicetrack everything, and remove what makes radio still viable, localism and personality. Could go either way.

But that wasn't the theme of the convention. The theme is still convergence, I guess, but I think the real changes are still slowly being discovered and the convention hasn't quite caught up with them. (I thought there'd be a lot about blockchain, but I guess we'll see that in a big "What is Blockchain?" keynote event in a year or two. All things in due course, I suppose.) And in the meantime, the business end of radio is lurching towards a data-driven future and the creative end is disintermediating itself from the traditional radio companies and moving faster towards an on-demand future, all the while trying to figure out how to turn that into cash.

None of that fits into a neat slogan, though. If you can come up with one, the NAB could use it for next year's show.

=============================

Whatever the future brings, Talk Topics, the show prep column at All Access News-Talk-Sports, will provide you with material to talk about on the radio or in a podcast or through mind control, and it's all free. Check it out by clicking here and/or by following the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item. There's the Podcasting section at AllAccess.com/podcasts. Oh, and do not miss "10 Questions With...." Bomani Jones, ESPN host, podcaster, and one of the most well-rounded and sharpest hosts you'll encounter. If you've heard his "The Right Time" podcast or radio show or seen him on "Highly Questionable" or "Around the Horn," you'll want to read this one.

Make sure you're subscribed to Today's Talk, the daily email newsletter with the top news stories in News, Talk, and Sports radio and podcasting. You can check off the appropriate boxes in your All Access account profile's Format Preferences and Email Preferences sections if you're not already getting it.

My podcast is "The Evening Bulletin with Perry Michael Simon," a quick (two minutes or less) daily thing, and you can get it at Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Google Play Music, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, Stitcher, and RadioPublic. Spotify, too. You can also use the RSS feed and the website where you can listen in your browser, or my own website where they're all embedded, too.

You can follow my personal Twitter account at @pmsimon, and my Instagram account (same handle, @pmsimon) as well. And you can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pmsimon, and at pmsimon.com.

=============================

Now, there's been a lot of discussion on my Facebook page about something I raised there and on Twitter, but I'm going to leave it there for now, because the commenters there are still in hot debate and I'm exhausted from Vegas and have a headache. In the meantime, you should register for the Worldwide Radio Summit in Hollywood May 2-4, where I'll be moderating a panel on your future with Tom Leykis, Steve Goldstein, Rob Greenlee, Doug Reed, and Gina Juliano; Register here. And I'll be on a panel about podcasting with Seth Resler, Dave Beasing, Sheryl Worsley, and Michael Brandvold at The Conclave in July in Minneapolis. After that, I'll be at Podcast Movement in Philadelphia in July. And to everyone I saw in Vegas, great to see you there. See you at the next one...

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
www.facebook.com/pmsimon
Twitter @pmsimon
Instagram @pmsimon