I changed things up a bit this year for my trip to NAB and I wasn’t the only one, more on that later. Last year I was in Vegas for NAB Saturday through Thursday, but with an extra kiddo at home this year I had to cut my trip a day short on either end. Meaning I had less time to conference, network and, most importantly, enjoy Vegas. But that ended up working out well thanks to a few tweaks the NAB made this year that helped make the conference considerably more radio friendly than I expected. But before we get into that and I share my one big takeaway let’s talk about the fun stuff.
In keeping with my theme of changing things up. I decided to stay a little off the beaten path at the Palms Casino Resort Las Vegas. Which ended up being a bad decision. Although it was a much nicer hotel than the Westgate, the wifi was intermittent, the pool was closed for wind (didn’t know that was a thing) and most importantly it was a long cab or uber ride over to the convention every day. While I’ll absolutely stay there again when I’m in town with the wife and kids, it’s not business-friendly enough for a conference visit in my opinion. However, as usual I did make my best efforts to meet with clients, potential clients and fellow radio pals at a couple of fun spots around town including the Tuscany to see my buddy Drew Anthony at the Rat Pack is Back show, breakfast at Sadelle’s in the Bellagio, drinks and dinner at The Steakhouse in Circus Circus, drinks and apps on Fremont street and a little gambling here and there (came back up a hundy!)
This is where what appeared to be a conscious logistical decision by the NAB was a lifesaver for me on a tight turnaround this year. Usually, the radio booths are seemingly spread out across all the halls of the convention center in Las Vegas but this year they grouped the majority of them together in the Central Hall. This made for less overall walking and allowed me to see lots of my radio friends without logging 20k steps a day on my FitBit. I caught up with Daniel Hyatt from DNav to see his amazing new affordable and customizable on-air console, Melanie Knapp from Music Master to see their new automation, Kat Tansey from RCS to talk about what’s new with GSelector and Zetta and several others to look at everything from automation to transmitters. I also bounced around the exhibit halls to see some amazing new speaker technology from Marziani Labs that looked like it came straight off an alien ship, have a conversation with a cloned Michael Caine at Eleven Labs booth, and talk clipping with the guys at Opus Clip. Then had lunch on the final day with my friend Curtis Machek with TextGroove.
Without a doubt my favorite session was the We Are Broadcasters celebration on the mainstage hosted by NAB President Curtis LeGeyt, where he handed out the Library of American Broadcasting Insight Award to Mo Rocca, the NAB Engineering Achievement Awards to radio honoree Bert Goldman and television honoree Harvey Arnold, the NAB Digital Leadership award to Mike Rossellini and the NAB Television Chairman’s Award to television host and comedian Nate Bargatze. Where I learned, if you want to have a packed house for an awards show end it with a conversation with the hottest comedian on the planet. NAB EVP of Industry Affairs and Innovation April Carty-Sipp did a phenomenal job interviewing Bargatze live on-stage and getting him to open up about growing up listening to Bob and Tom on the radio, his love for our broadcast boundaries in radio and tv, hosting SNL twice, his new game show, the theme park he’s opening in Nashville and what’s next for him, developing the next generation of young and talented creators. I walked away from it thinking he’d pulled the wool over my eyes with his average guy on-stage persona because he’s clearly a smart man who spent a lot of time and hard-working building his brand and is very strategic about how he protects it. A lesson every radio person could learn from. In addition to that session I caught several on the exhibit floor where AI was again the buzz word used every other sentence encouraging everyone who will listen to become AI enhanced humans to 10x themselves and make sure they’re one of the last ones standing in the labor force regardless of their industry.
Final Thoughts
I had one big takeaway this year. Everyone in broadcasting thinks they’re the hardest working person in broadcasting. That’s statistically impossible but there’s a reason they feel that way. They’re all working harder to do more with less by doing everything they can to pair their broadcast experience with a willingness to embrace modern tools and tech and apply all of that to help maintain enough revenue to keep the doors open and pay the power bill at the transmitter site. Because, like it or not, we’re nearing the end of a transitional period where broadcast media is either going to have a resurgence where it redefines itself or gets redefined and taken over by others. The choice is ours. For radio’s sake I hope we make the right one.
If you attended the show, let me know in the comments what your big takeaway was this year and how you thought it compared to previous years.
Andy Meadows is the Chief Editor of Radio Update and the founder, CEO and lead consultant at Radio Station Consultant. He’s also the host of the weekly Radio Influencers podcast series for Radio Update.