NAB 2010: Now In 3-D!

This year's NAB Show convention included seemingly unlimited displays of cutting-edge equipment and panels of brainstorming that left attendees energized and ready to create amazing and exciting... 3-D video. Maybe web video, too.

Radio? Oh, right, radio. We have some of that here someplace. Wait, let me just... check... geez, it was here a minute ago... You're talking about the thing with the headphones, right? We don't get much call for that nowadays.

Okay, it wasn't quite that bad, but radio has always taken a distant second place at the April NAB convention, and for the past couple of years, as the NAB has retooled the show to drag in new media, radio's fallen further down the pecking order, so you'll forgive me for feeling like radio is to this convention as an HD Radio receiver is to your local Best Buy. Sure, they have one or two someplace in the back, but wouldn't you rather have a satellite radio, or an iPod, or an iPad, or a 3-D television instead? Look at the screen! That golf ball appears to be heading RIGHT AT YOUR SKULL WOW ISN'T THAT INCREDIBLE!!! Oh, you still want radio. Are you sure?

The dichotomy between old and new continues to become more striking as the NAB continues to deemphasize the "B" in NAB. You could tell by who was where: the radio stuff drew small crowds of mostly (much) older folks in business suits, while the video halls and panels were filled with young geeks and engineers. The April show is now mostly video -- as opposed to television -- and the buzzword once again this year was "content," as in... well, I'm never sure about that. The show always nods in the direction of the folks who perform and write and produce, but for the most part, "content creation" here means equipment and tools. That works if you're interested more in how cool something looks and sounds but not if you care about story or topic or performance. It's an "Avatar" world at the NAB; the material doesn't matter, as long as it's in 3-D.

The convention, and the Internet radio seminar held separately across the street, aren't, ultimately, about the content at all. They're about the desperate search for a way to pay the bills. The 3-D stuff isn't because 3-D is so freakin' amazing -- it's more of a headache to watch, it's expensive right now, and it's 1950's whiz-bang technology updated in HD -- but because TV manufacturers need you to buy new sets, equipment manufacturers need to sell production companies new cameras, and studios and networks need something with buzz to draw attention and sell tickets and DVDs.

Monetizing audio content? Hmm. You can talk CPMs and pay-per-click and whatever other metrics you want, but as long as advertisers aren't keen on spending, you can charge by the syllable and it won't matter. We're in a transitional period, and the experts don't know nothin'. All you can do is create the best entertainment possible given your budget, put it on every platform possible, and hope for things to shake out soon. If you haven't figured out how to monetize your stuff yet, nobody else really has, either. They're working on it, and a few folks are making money with podcasts and streaming, but if you want to rake in the kind of revenue radio used to get, it's still in the theoretical stage.

While the "cool kids" were checking out the 3-D stuff, I was sitting in dark rooms with bad Wi-Fi listening to speeches and panels. The hot non-3-D topics were the performance royalty (turns out they're against it -- who would have guessed?) and the FCC's plan to hold auctions of TV spectrum to use for mobile broadband. It was interesting to see the new NAB President and CEO, former Senator Gordon Smith, do battle on the spectrum issue with the FCC commissioners. The FCC's position is that mobile broadband is critical to the future of our society and the spectrum presently used by over-the-air television is urgently needed for that purpose. The NAB's position appears to be that broadcasting is regulated for indecency and the Internet pumps LEWD DISGUSTING THINGS into your home and ATTACKS YOUR CHILDREN and isn't having safe, inoffensive broadcast television better than ENDANGERING LITTLE BILLY with FILTH AND PERVERSION?!?

That'll work.

There was more, of course, but, to me, the radio portion of the convention had one moment of clarity, Phil Hendrie's "keynote" at the Radio Luncheon. It wasn't a speech, it was a performance, and as Phil jumped in and out of his character voices, showing the audience how he becomes Margaret Grey and Ted Bell and countless other personalities armed only with a mic and a telephone receiver, I was reminded how the success of all the technology and futurist stuff and spectrum allocations and broadband policy ultimately come down to the people who create the stuff that gets delivered through those methods. You can put it in 3-D, you can send it over WiMax or LTE, you can podcast it, you can turn it into a smartphone app, you can put it on "regular" radio, but real talent can make you listen and pay attention no matter how it's delivered.

The rest is just noise.

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If you checked in at All Access' Net News this week, you saw our NAB coverage, and, yeah, that was me, skulking around Vegas and sitting through sales management panels so you didn't have to. But while I was doing that, I was also keeping Talk Topics, the show prep column at All Access News-Talk-Sports, updated with items on a regular basis, even on the days on which I spent hours driving to and from Vegas through the desert (note: the World's Tallest Thermometer appeared to not be in service, for those of you keeping track of disappointing roadside attractions of America). The column is fully stocked with hundreds of topics this week, including the election won, handily, by a dead man, the hazards of nudity in art, the danger of being "friends with benefits," how expired beer got some city workers in trouble, a warning about "bushmeat," what they're finding discarded on the Jersey Shore beaches, assault with a deadly python, cheating at the bass fishing tournament, Larry King's divorce, a proposed public school "bailout," the joys of skeeball, the lost art of movie intermissions, some driving school mishaps, and how to save money on baggage fees by taking nude vacations. There's more, including all the "real" news stories of the week; if you're stuck for material, drop in and you'll find plenty. Then take a look at "10 Questions With..." WPTI (Rush Radio 94.5)/Greensboro-Winston Salem morning co-host and executive producer Pamela Furr and the aforementioned Net News for the radio and music industry news you need, first, best, and most complete. Job listings? That, too, and columns and music charts and the Industry Directory and more resources, all free.

Twitter? Why, yes, there's a Talk Topics Twitter feed: twitter.com/talktopics. Every item's there for easy reference as soon as it's on the site. Follow All Access Net News, too, at twitter.com/allaccess. And for the musings of a grouchy talk radio guy and rabid Phillies fan, there's always twitter.com/pmsimon.

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Perry Michael Simon
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