Event Preview: NAB Show

The NAB Show returns to the Las Vegas Convention Center from April 5 to 10.

The first NAB Show was held in 1923, and since then, it has established itself as the world’s largest electronic media event, covering the development, management and delivery of content across all platforms. NAB Show has kept pace with the changes in the media business during that time. “As the industry evolves and is reborn, so does the show, which has refreshed itself with each shift in the content production and consumption landscape over the last 90 year,” says Chris Brown, the executive VP for conventions and business operations at NAB.

“The early shows drew a few hundred people and were focused on core broadcast technology, as it pertained to over-the-air broadcasting,” he explains. “Over the years, as methods and tools have converged, the show evolved to cover new distribution platforms and technologies, including cable, satellite, the Internet and certainly film. The exhibit floor has reflected these changes, morphing from a straight hardware, equipment-focused event to what is now a showcase of both hardware and software solutions and services for all these sectors. Production and post-production have been at the center of this change and have driven a great deal of the show’s growth over the last 15 years.”

Indeed, attendance has been growing, particularly with the production and post-production sector, which represent about 30 percent of attendees. Broadcasters now represent around 20 percent. The event has gotten more global as well, and today nearly one-third of the participants hail from outside the U.S.

Haim Saban, the chairman of Univision Communications, founder of Saban Capital Group and the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, will headline the 2014 NAB Show Opening. A Q&A session, led by NAB president and CEO Gordon Smith, will take place Monday, April 7, following Smith’s “State of the Broadcast Industry” address. Each year at the NAB Show, the National Association of Broadcasters honors a new inductee into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame. This year, the hit series Everybody Loves Raymond will be the 2014 television inductee, and will be honored at the 2014 NAB Show Television Luncheon, also on April 7.

On the show floor, attendees get to see firsthand the emerging technologies—both in software and hardware—of content creation and distribution, which is then complemented by the Super Sessions, which provide the opportunity to hear firsthand how the industry’s luminaries are using these new tools. The Super Sessions focus on over-arching trends impacting the future of entertainment and media. In recent years, topics have included developments in display technologies, the evolution of sports production, digital disruption and filmmaking techniques.

Another highlight is the NAB Show Collaborative. “The content business is undeniably global—increasingly so with each passing year,” says Brown. “The NAB Show Collaborative is a recognition of this, with our show partnering with the world’s leading regional events that each understand the nuances of their particular market better than anyone else. The current partners of the NAB Show Collaborative include Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, CABSAT in Dubai and SET Expo in Brazil.

“Through these partnerships we are then able to bring such region-specific knowledge to Las Vegas under the larger NAB Show tent, and thus allow our attendees to learn about not only the newest trends in the broadcast, media and entertainment businesses, but also take deep dives into the most important markets they would otherwise not have insider access to.”

The show will also feature the Media Management in the Cloud Conference, a two-day event programmed in partnership with the Entertainment Technology Center at USC. “The NAB Show recognized years ago that media consumption had become more digital and connected with the growing adoption of TV everywhere, mobile TV and connected set-top boxes,” Brown explains. “Consumption’s ‘TV Everywhere’ has a creation counterpart: ‘production anywhere.’

“In today’s content-creation world, it’s feasible to have multiple teams shooting in disparate locations, with editing crews in yet other locations, and visual effects teams halfway around the world from everyone else. Our Media Management in the Cloud Conference addresses the complications of this new breed of production workflow, and, most importantly, fosters thought leadership around viable solutions for top-to-bottom, cloud-based content creation and distribution.”

As part of its efforts to serve as a source for international networking, funding and deal making, NAB Show is hosting the Content Business Marketplace, a two-day program and evening reception targeted to programming executives and digital media players in the entertainment business. The International Trade Center, meanwhile, is open to the more than 25,000 attendees that come from outside the U.S., providing translators, meeting rooms, electronic import/export matching, a lounging area and assistance from the Department of Commerce’s International Buyer Program. Noble Financial brings the NAB Financial Forum’s invitation-only, co-located event to NAB Show, featuring investor presentations by leading U.S. media and entertainment companies.

There’s also a Disruptive Media Conference, which focuses on how new media and traditional OTT technologies are impacting distribution models and consumer engagement. “The digital content world is one that is still being defined,” says Brown. “This means global format standards have yet to be agreed upon. The NAB Show is uniquely positioned to be a facilitator of such format- and region-specific standardization, as our attendees are both geographically diverse, as well as technologically progressive. These two worlds come together at the NAB Show with the aim of working toward the best outcome for all parties involved in the content pipeline, and this is how a global industry moves forward in lockstep.”

Brown says that above all else, he hopes that attendees get to see that the shifting content creation and distribution landscape has many opportunities ahead. “Through the discourse and networking facilitated by our show, we position our attendees to uncover such opportunities, and do business in new markets, with new people, using new technologies they would have never had access to otherwise,” he adds.