I’ve been attending and covering the National Association of Broadcasters Convention and Exhibition for many years. NAB 2006 is certainly “The World’s Largest Electronic Media Show.” This year had a different feel, somehow new, but impressively different enough to get my notice. The registered attendance was up to105,046. Over 25,000 of us were International attendees. I overheard countless conversations in Chinese and Japanese among the usual German, French, and Spanish languages as well as the British accented talk.

Wolf Coach,Auburn MA, always draws attention on the NAB exhibit floor with their flashy mobile broadcast vehicles and satellite vans.

Kathy O'Toole and Dan Cronin at the National Ministry of Design's booth at RTNDA exhibit hall where they played their award winning broadcast design and gave away really cool NMD t-shirts.

Karl Renwanz was looking for the "glue" at NAB. (Front row) Nash Bly,Video Transfer, Boston; Karl and Sondra Renwanz,Atlantic Pacific Media,West Coast; (Back row) Roger Hendrick,Video Transfer, Boston; an Daren Gulsvig, Atlantic Pacific Media, Phoenix.

Victor Lloyd at the Barbizon Lighting Booth. Lloyd is Barbizon's new Sales Manager at their New York Office. Peter McNamee replace him in Woburn as Barbizon's General Manager here.

IMAGINE photos.

The “new” may be directly related to new leadership at NAB. David Rehr joined NAB as President and CEO in December of 2005. Prior to his taking over the helm at the National Association of Broadcasters, he was president of the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA). The press room (1,294 attendees this year) was favorably impressed when Mr. Rehr stopped by to welcome the press and to express his goals for NAB at a generous press reception. I must say, I can’t ever remember the President and CEO stopping by the press room, not ever, much less such an extravagant party for the press.

With more than 20 years of experience on Capitol Hill and in the lobbying community, Rehr has been an outspoken advocate for entrepreneurs and small businesses before the federal government. I first heard him speak at the Television Broadcasters Lunch where I soon discovered that Jack Valenti is Rehr’s new best friend. Rehr eloquently addressed the packed room of over 2000 television broadcasters by encouraging the need of aggressively embracing the full scope of new technologies and utilizing every single new gadget and tool we have available. He advanced providing compelling content with new platforms in mind; all complementing our free-over-the-air broadcast programming. Rehr also said, “we must emphasize and be evangelical about our commitment to localism. Localism is the lifeblood of our business. It’s what sets us apart and makes us unique. Lastly, Rehr believes NAB must educate Congress and the FCC about the uniqueness of broadcasting and the central role we play in communities across America. I’m impressed as to how well he has adapted to his new industry and how much he has learned since coming on board.

At this luncheon Regis Philbin (a television icon for over four decades) was inducted into the NAB Hall of Fame and Jack Valenti gave a rousing defense of the First Amendment and an overview of the industry’s effort to give parents responsibility and parental control of what their children watch on television, a continuance of his work at the MPAA. Watch for a huge campaign to roll out in June.

Much of NAB was about New Media and New Opportunities. Ideas and Technology reigned, but most agreed fewer new products were introduced this year than usual. I learned that the new newscast wouldn’t just come to me over the air or via satellite or cable, but to get the full gist of it I will need my computer, the internet and every hand held device I can find. I’m not amazed, but convergence isn’t actually happening in the way that I expected in that the television set and my computer screen would become one and the same. My take was that I work at my computer and I’m entertained or watch news and sports on my TV. That will not happen and here’s why. My computer is designed to interface with me alone; it’s a one on one proposition. My TV, however, can relate to however many people are in the room as long as we can agree on what to watch.  Here’s the convergence and if you are under 35 you may have already converged. Convergence is the two screen viewer watching the same TV show on two screens, your TV and your laptop (where you can get the multiple other levels of the programming such as contests, voting capabilities, podcasts, blogs, feedback mechanisms, and oh, yes, emails containing a personalized message from the sponsor or advertiser, etc.) at the same time.

There doesn’t seem to be a term (like rapidity of change in the eighties) to adequately describe the lightning like changes occurring today. Take "podcasts” for example. From March 2003 till March 2004, the word had only 6 hits on Google. On September 28, 2004, the result was 24 hits. There were 526 hits for "podcasts" on September 30, then 2,750 hits only three days later. The number doubled every few days, passing 100,000 by October 18. As of November 24, 2005 Google reported 103,000,000 hits for "podcasts."  My spell check still underlines it and offers no suggestions.

I always learn a lot at NAB. My main function since publishing IMAGINE is to check in on the New Englanders who are exhibiting and those pounding the concourses to see and buy that which is new, to find out why what they ordered last year still hasn’t been delivered, or as in the case of Atlantic Pacific Media’s (Video Transfer to us) Karl Renwanz, to look for “glue.” Karl articulates that the “glue” is that which makes everything else work together. There was not a booth marked the “glue” booth, so I’m not sure where he found it.

John Rule was looking at cameras I’m certain, although I didn’t see him I heard of sightings. National Boston’s Tom Sprague was having conversations with those he did business with last year. I spoke briefly to Jim Burke of HB Communications on our cell phones. I met with Element Production’s Eran Lobel at the Mass Tech VIP Lounge, where I became a charter member this year. And Grafton Nunes, Dean of the School of the Arts at Emerson College attended. Storage is a big issue for Emerson as their film and broadcast journalism students have enormous output. Indeed, I found “storage” and “workflow” to be busy words at this year’s NAB.

And storage and workflow is what Terry Cullen and 1 Beyond (Somerville, MA) were touting this year. 1st Design™ -- 1 Beyond’s storage division,  unveiled the recently-announced IntelliRaid FC™, the industry’s only intelligent, enterprise level storage at desktop prices. This high performance direct attached fibre channel-based storage system is designed specifically for video professionals. Connected to the IntelliRaid systems, were several 1 Beyond Pro HD Flex™ nonlinear editing systems as well as 1 Beyond’s award winning laptops, including the 1 Beyond 3817 HD running Avid Xpress Pro HD and the Adobe Video Suite featuring uncompressed High Definition editing. The booth was so busy; I could barely catch a photo of Terry Cullen with his new prized product.

At the Glidecam Industries (Plymouth, MA) exhibit I found many potential customers hooked up in varying Glidecam products, gliding around with a camera in tow trying out the system. The Gold series was the hit of the day. One of the Gold products, the Gold Arm, is a dual articulating Support Arm that is designed to carry a total combined camera and sled weight of 31 to 56 pounds. The Glidecam Gold Series Arm includes six titanium Springs and an Industry Standard, titanium Vest Connector. Some customers wanted to buy the demos right off the floor!

At Barbizon Lighting I discovered that my friend Victor Lloyd has moved to New York and is now the Barbizon Lighting Company’s Sales Manager there. Peter McNamee replaces him as General Manager here in Woburn, MA. The booth was filled with eager attendees waiting for the next lighting demo.

Avid is one of the most popular exhibit sites at NAB. They always have new products to introduce and there is a super learning opportunity component attached. Mostly, though, I think people go there to stand on their luxuriously thick “cushy” carpet and rest their feet. I was delighted to find that two students from Emerson College had been selected to intern at the Avid Booth. Jeremy Metzer and David Shoalin were super charged with enthusiasm as I caught them heading off to “shop” the competition. Avid Technology and HB Communications (North Haven, CT) have partnered up to host the Post NAB Tour in Norwalk, CT on May 18th at the Brewhouse, from 6 PM to 9 PM. You can register for this event by email at:  events@hbcommunications.com.

Wolf Coach, (Auburn, MA) always has an impressive display of mobile broadcast vehicles. They have one, or will make you one, to fit your needs no matter how small or large. Wolf Coach expanded their facilities late in 2004 increasing their manufacturing plant in MA by 17,000 square feet. And I was surprised to find out about their new facility in West Jordan, UT. Their new 13,000 square foot Utah manufacturing facility is in full production of Wolf’s newest broadcast product, the Coyote Coach. The growing team at the new facility continues to provide industry leading customer service for the news vehicles in the western US.

Last year Karl Renwanz suggested I visit the SeaChange exhibit. I put it on the top of my list for this year. SeaChange International, Inc. (Eran Lobel and I posed for a picture at their superbly designed booth that provided an area of display and an area conducive to sales) provides digital video systems that are changing television. Its powerful server and software systems enable television operators to provide new on-demand services and to gain greater efficiencies in advertising and content delivery. With its Emmy-winning MediaCluster technology, thousands of SeaChange systems are helping broadband, broadcast and satellite television companies to streamline operations, expand services and increase revenues. SeaChange is headquartered in Maynard, Massachusetts and has product development, support and sales offices throughout the world.

National Ministry of Design (NMD) exhibited in the RTNDA exhibit hall, which is actually in the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel and is a much calmer area than the Las Vegas Convention Center Halls and outdoor acres of exhibit space. Kathy O’Toole headed up the National Boston division looking to connect with News Directors and other advertising clients in need of their expert and award winning broadcast design.

Earlier this year at NATPE all the talk was “Push Pull” television. The Push being that which is scheduled and we can choose to watch like the evening news or Pull being that which we can elect to watch on demand. As the evening news viewing numbers continue to go down, it is clear that the technologies that facilitate on demand viewing on any size screen may be the ones to watch and to invest in. (PUB)