The 2024 NAB Show in Vegas put a spotlight on the seismic shifts happening in broadcasting media. Capture the optimism and excitement for what’s happening in this episode as BIA’s Christina Hurley, Rick Ducey, and Nicole Ovadia unpack their key takeaways and offer their optimism around the industry’s readiness to embrace new technologies.
The BIA team discusses how ATSC3 and AI implementation is moving from buzzwords to real-world applications. They also examine the auto industry and the advanced tech vying for space in the complex dashboard arena. Plus they discuss the new possibilities for radio in light of the FCC’s approval of over-the-air geotargeting for FM stations. At the heart of it all, Christina, Nicole and Rick explain that we are witnessing the integration of advanced technologies that are driving a significant evolution of audience behaviors and advertiser expectations simultaneously. This excitement has captured the industry’s attention and definitely won’t stay in Vegas!
The episode a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of media, technology, and community.
The 2024 NAB Show in Vegas put a spotlight on the seismic shifts happening in broadcasting media. Capture the optimism and excitement for what’s happening in this episode as BIA’s Christina Hurley, Rick Ducey, and Nicole Ovadia unpack their key takeaways and offer their optimism around the industry’s readiness to embrace new technologies.
The BIA team discusses how ATSC3 and AI implementation is moving from buzzwords to real-world applications. They also examine the auto industry and the advanced tech vying for space in the complex dashboard arena. Plus they discuss the new possibilities for radio in light of the FCC’s approval of over-the-air geotargeting for FM stations. At the heart of it all, Christina, Nicole and Rick explain that we are witnessing the integration of advanced technologies that are driving a significant evolution of audience behaviors and advertiser expectations simultaneously. This excitement has captured the industry’s attention and definitely won’t stay in Vegas!
The episode a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of media, technology, and community.
Hello and welcome everyone to BIA's Leading Local Insights podcast, where we focus on the trends, technologies and activities driving local media advertising. I'm Christina Hurley, VP of Sales at BIA, and today I'm excited to host my first podcast for BIA with my colleagues Rick Ducey, Managing Director of BIA, and Nicola Vadia, VP of Forecasting and Analysis. We have all just returned from the NAB show in Las Vegas, where we had the most incredible conversations with so many people across the industry. I think we are all feeling inspired and positive about the direction of the industry and the incredible technologies that are having a major impact, and that's what we're going to discuss today.
Christina Hurley:Whether you went to the NAB or just want to hear some important takeaways, we're going to give you our perspective and share what we think is going to happen next for key areas like AI, to happen next for key areas like AI, CTV, local radio, next-gen TV and much more. So thank you for joining us. Before we get into the specifics, let's talk about the vibe in general. This year, For me, I felt a significant increase in energy from broadcasters overall. Rick and Nicole, what did you think overall? How did this NAB feel compared to other NABs?
Nicole Ovadia:Hi, Christina, it's great to be here. As you said, my name is Nicole Ovadia and I'm the VP of forecasting, and it was a fantastic conference. So I'm going to take this question first and then pass it off to Rick, because this was my first NAB with BIA and my first time being at NAB in over 10 years, so my perspective, of course, will be a little bit different than his.
Nicole Ovadia:I loved the energy, so I mean the vibe, as you just mentioned there was. It was palpable, and everybody I was talking to on the floor and as I was, you know, walking around and all the exhibits there were companies I'd never heard of before, and whenever I said oh, hi, I'm new, they said oh, I'm new too, and so it felt like a lot of attendees were there for the first time. There's a lot of new technologies and a lot of emerging platforms, and so the energy in terms of where we're headed and the possible future, what the next 10 years looks like, that was something I've never felt around broadcasting before and I absolutely loved it. Rick, what did you think?
Rick Ducey:Yeah, I mean I agree about the positive energy. We're still sort of climbing out of the COVID period where people are starting to do travel and have more meetings. So there's still that kind of high-value engagement where you see people they haven't seen for a while. Even if you are back traveling, most people's travel schedule, I think, is still lighter than it had been pre-coveted, so there's still some of that euphoria of hey, you know I'm out and about and getting to talk to um clients, um colleagues, you know business partners and so on. So that's nice for this NAB.
Rick Ducey:One of the things that was different, for me at least, was it felt like things were actually starting to happen. So ATSC3, aka NextGenTV, has been a part of the show, both the show floor and sessions and some of the bar conversations and so on, but they're actual achievements being highlighted in the ATSC3 pavilion and the sessions and all these different meetings going around and some business announcements that were pretty interesting. We'll come back to that in a bit and so I think positivity, new things like AI being introduced into the industry and meaningful in some ways, wasn't just chatter. People are actually doing things and showing things. So that for me that was sort of a theme of people getting back together. That's still something that people appreciate being able to do. It's good to see you, it's good to be seen kind of thing and actual technology achievements and rollouts in the industry that are kind of exciting to see.
Christina Hurley:Great Well, Nicole, you spoke at the Small and Medium Radio Forum. What excited you about that and what did you say
Nicole Ovadia:Yeah, first of all, thank you to the NAB for even including me on that panel. The Small and Medium Radio is near and dear to my heart. I mean I came up through radio. I mean I came up at Hot 97 and WBLS, so that's not small market, that's the large market in New York, but radio I just I have an affinity for radio and so it was.
Nicole Ovadia:It was a true pleasure to speak in that forum and what I loved most of all was that room was packed packed, I mean, to the gills. It was crazy, I couldn't believe it and I wasn't expecting that. So so many people there for small and medium radio, which was on Saturday, so it was before the conference even really started started and so to see that room and to feel the energy off the charts and people talking about small and medium market radio. So my takeaways from the panel and the discussion I'm excited about new technology and I'm excited about the ways that they will help small and medium market radio connect with communities.
Nicole Ovadia:So one of the important things from my panel especially was what makes small and medium market radio is their connection to communities in ways that nobody else can and they have, you know, intrinsic loyalty they have they've been on the air for as many years as they have Like. This connection to community is real, and their ability to move product is real. And so using new technology. We spent a lot of time talking about new technology in the Small and Medium Radio Forum, but it's not to replace people, it's to make us even more connected to our communities and serve our clients even better. So that was a theme that came out of that, one out of that and just the, there was an excitement around the future of small and medium radio and the ways that technology can help them, Because in the past we've been talking about the erosion of small and medium radio, and so I really enjoyed the energy and the positivity.
Christina Hurley:Thank you. That's great to hear, Nicole. You were also on a panel about the future opportunities for TV and radio. What stood out as the most important opportunities that people should be leaning into?
Nicole Ovadia:Very interesting as well. So the day after, so on Sunday, the panel was a little. It was a wider view, if you will. So the future of television and radio and again, similar themes in that, technology is here, it's coming. How can it help us, how can it enhance us? The general theme in terms of TV and radio, the future of that.
Nicole Ovadia:For me, my takeaway was the future of television and radio is video, both of those you know.
Nicole Ovadia:So it's a somewhat controversial thing to say, but what I mean by that was extending the audiences beyond. So moving to CTV and OTT and selling those products to your clients, because they're helping to reach consumers in places and in ways that they are today. And so, again, leaning on those connections to the local community and using that to enhance what you're trying to do, the products that you're trying to sell, and using new technologies to do that. So for the growth prospects, I mean we were talking about verticals that are growing, of course, and you can reach out to BIA. We'd love to have conversations about your specific markets and all the verticals and how they're growing. But, in general, stay connected to your local communities and help them to move into the new technological spaces and the new ways that we can help our clients, and I know you've got Christina, you're about to ask Rick about especially some of these new technologies, so I'm going to stop talking so that you can get right into those technologies and talk about ways in which we can help our clients more.
Christina Hurley:Perfect, rick. There was a lot of buzz at NAB this year about AI, Next Gen TV and AM radio. What's going on in these areas and what do you see happening next in each? Let's start with AI.
Rick Ducey:Sure, yeah, and it's interesting that collection of topics, because it sort of spans the history of the broadcast industry and largely the media industry, starting off with AM and then ending up with AI, so for kind of evolving how we're using these two-letter acronyms for things. Yes, so AI artificial intelligence been the talk for years, much more so recently, and particularly the excitement is around one form of artificial intelligence generative AI, where the AI, these machine agents, create content and what can you do with that? So that's kind of been in the public discussion and certainly in the interview discussion, pretty fervently over the past year goes back earlier than that. What's going to happen? What are we going to do with this? So I think at this NAB show we saw some really interesting instances of how this technology can be deployed. Probably the iconic moment was Daniel Anstendig from Futuri had a keynote session with a robot. Emeka Uri said so you're AI, you know what does that mean, and just a little fun with AI, and so that was kind of a foundational part of the show, I think, in terms of where AI fits into it.
Rick Ducey:But there's some business announcements. So it's not just tech and the evolution of these things. What we can do with technology is gee whiz. That's really interesting. But then you wake up the next morning and say what do I have actually? Well, now we actually have some things. So, for example, sinclair has had an announcement recently about how they're using generative AI with their tennis channel, and what they're doing there is they're now having the programming done in multiple languages. So ai will do the interpretation slash translations. But one of the things if you're a fan of foreign programming, the language is, if it's um voiceover, the the lip sync is horrible. I mean, it's. In some cases it's close, but depending upon the languages being involved, it can be very distracting. So the AI mimics the link zip of whatever language you're tuning into, which is pretty clever and it seems like a subtle thing, but it's actually pretty major for the audience experience. So that's one place to use generative AI that I think is going to be pretty impactful.
Rick Ducey:Other places to use the journey of AI are on-air talent. So you can have someone good or bad train on your voice, an AI you know machine algorithm and they can feed things into it and that person can run the late-night shift that AI person. So you can actually have on-air talent. That's AI. Nicole, you were talking about medium and small markets and that local connection. It's hard to staff those and hard to come up with the money to pay the people at the scale you would like to be able to do to cover locals. I mean that could be a role for these AI on-air announcers. A few different things there that are happening, and so I'll stop there for AI and a lot of different things happening there, but generative AI is the main thing.
Nicole Ovadia:That's coming on here.
Rick Ducey:Oh one thing I was stumbling because I'm trying to remember one more thing I want to bring up. So there's this mess of studies on AI and what that means to media and audiences. Jacob's Media had a webinar release on research that well, what do the public think about AI and media? I mean, do I want to have AI speak to me, am I okay with AI doing these multilingual translations and do I trust AI kind of thing? So they had one view that maybe had a few cautions. As part of what Futuri and Daniel Anstendig released was another big study conducted by CMG on the audience's perceptions and evaluations of AI. That was probably a bit more sanguine. So we're talking about how the industry is making business use cases of this, but the audience, you know, in some cases is pretty up to speed and actually think some of what they're seeing now is AI, let alone what would they think of it. They think they're already getting it. So the audience seems to be very much part of the game too.
Christina Hurley:Okay. So NextGenTV there was excitement about consumer-facing developments and things on the data casting side.
Rick Ducey:Yeah, we did At BIA. We did a forecast of what the revenue picture could look like for ATSC3, which is the way the industry thinks about it, and then the consumer-facing branding of that same technology as NextGen TV. So if you go to Best Buy or someplace and ask for an ATSC3 receiver, the salesperson may not know what you're talking about. But if you say NextGen TV, hopefully they do know what you're talking about. But if you say next-gen TV, hopefully they do know what you're talking about. So that's been a technology that has been out there for a while. Broadcasters have had different philosophies. Atsc3, we want to use that to improve the basic broadcast service, the basic experience. And other people are saying well, we can use that technology, which is very IP, internet technology friendly, and do other things. We can make TV interactive, we can do shopping TV, we can have a more immersive experience, we can geo-target content, so things that are consumer-facing, that will enrich that experience and that could be news, weather, it could also be advertising content. So that part of it has been sort of hypothetical and some testing in the market. The other side is like wow, we can make much more efficient use of our spectrum. We can actually enter a whole new market. We can move data around, become part of the content distribution network marketplace and that marketplace is billions and billions and billions of dollars large. So ATSC3 is a technology platform that can evolve to meet future requirements, has two different players one on the consumer side and one on the industry of data side. And that has been a discussion, technology shows sessions talking about companies saying we're trying this or trying that, but now there were some actual announcements of deployments. So again that theme of moving from technology and this could happen to business and we're doing it. So Sinclair had an announcement with their new content distribution network over ATSC3, broadspan and they also announced not only did they have this as an offer in the marketplace, but they have a customer. It's a business, egeo, which is an existing content distribution network. We use some of their services over the Sinclair Broadband Network.
Rick Ducey:An industry group called Pearl TV has been working and popularizing in the business context ATSC3 technologies On the consumer side. One of the things that has been a high friction point is how do consumers interact with Run TV with ATSC3? So if you have an Apple box, a Firebox, amazon box, a Google box or somebody's box that comes with a software in that tech stack, an EPG or some sort of user interface. But what is that for broadcast TV in the ATSC 3 generation. So Run 3 TV is sort of that user app that creates user interface and a nice integrated experience across all the different sets of services. So that has been built out and starting to deploy in the market Using that kind of technology.
Rick Ducey:Nbcu had a very interesting announcement that they're gonna be using next gen TV with a consumer facing deployment to personalize the content experience with their stations or NBCU stations and Telemundo stations in four different markets so far. So that's an example of cool technology. You can do this, that and the other thing. What do we actually want to do? It's like it's in the market. So we'll see. So, moving from technology to business outcomes that seem well-pl, well placed and well targeted in the market, we'll see what happens next.
Christina Hurley:Yep, that'll be interesting. Okay, so finally, with all the new tech at the show. Am radio was a big part of the discussion.
Rick Ducey:Yes, and so another element, sort of tentpole element of new technology is exciting. That's going to be evolving to frontline or broadcasting and other media, probably the connected data services, information services, entertainment services. That's the car is like. I'm not sure if it's the last frontier, but it's a current frontier of where media is exploding. There's a lot of technology, a lot of services. So you know, you can't just go for a country drive and you know, kind of idle away a few hours on a sunny Sunday afternoon, that information, that car is packed with all kinds of stuff. Now it's like flying a fighter jet almost.
Rick Ducey:So what's in that car? Well, there's streaming, there's video, there's data, there's a lot of interactivity, there's heads-up displays. All of this complexity and wonderful technology is meant to simplify the basic tasks of getting from point A to point B while entertaining and informing you, increasing safety, increasing your entertainment value of the car. So so much of this stuff is happening in a car. So what is that interface that the driver and passengers use? It's that display. That head unit has so much stuff happening in it and there's only so much energy load that cars can actually take. I think the average car has something like 300 computers or microprocessors in it. So there's a ton of energy drain and we're just talking more and more into it. So, into that scenario, you've got a multifunctional display. It's displaying speed, distance, direction. It's displaying your gas, maybe giving you readouts on oil pressure. Then, of course, you get your GPS readouts when am I? Where am I going to be? How long is it going to take? And then you've got collision avoidance, lane tracking, autonomous driving controls, that you have wipers, lights, all that kind of stuff. So somewhere in there there's entertainment systems. Well, you can pick streaming audio video news. Different things are available to the driver versus the passenger. And somewhere in that stack there is AM and FM radio and, soon to be, atsc3 television.
Rick Ducey:So as OEMs, auto manufacturers, are trying to figure this all out, they say we've got so much stuff in there, do we have too much? And so we get to set up kind of a quintessential moment for broadcasting. Does AM belong in there? Does AM belong in there? Does FM belong in there? And in some cars, like EVs, the battery and the way the EV system works generates noise that is in the AM band. So it's like well, you know, we're wondering if AM belongs, and actually because of the way we build EVs. Am doesn't really perform very well in these cars. So why don't we take AM out? So it's like, oh, mortal wound to broadcasters. There's around almost 2 000 AM stations in the country and they generate almost a billion and a half dollars in advertising revenue. So it's a it's a, you know, secure business that has been around since literally the dawn of broadcasting.
Rick Ducey:Um, and to take AM out out of the car has a couple of different things. First, very tough on that line of business and the fans for AM radio, mostly news talk programming don't want it in the car. Now what you know, the car manufacturers are taking AM radio out. We don't like that. And then AM radio stations go back to the beginnings of emergency alerting, disaster warning and so on systems and they have typically well, they have different power levels, but some of the AM stations can travel a good distance. So the role for AM in emergency communications, alerting, notifications, and the role of AM for programming that people love, that's a strong, viable business. To take that out of the car car very exciting, connected car even more exciting. Maybe we should start to take some things out. That could be a bit of the baby with the bathwater.
Rick Ducey:So there's been a strong industry presence in Washington DC to lobby Congress. Then it has been a major force behind this and some of the big broadcasters to say you know, keep AM in the car. It has a vital role in the industry, in society and, you know, government trying to get alerts and warnings out. So that was kind of a big discussion too to say let's keep AM, and certainly FM, in a car, since these two media, am and FM, have a statutory obligation that none of these other media have to serve the public interest, convenience and necessity. So it's like let us do our jobs, don't take us out of the car because that's where people consume us most. Let us do our jobs, don't take us out of the car because that's where people consume us most. Let us do our jobs and help us out, keep us in the game. So that was sort of the theme behind AM.
Christina Hurley:Yeah. So, rick, sticking with the radio theme, there were sessions you know you were talking about connected cars, hybrid radios and new services Local radio broadcasters can offer and benefit from themselves and I think you might have walked us through some of that benefit from themselves and I think you might have walked us through some of that. But if there's anything else you wanted to tell us about the connected cars and radio, please do.
Rick Ducey:Sure. So there's a couple of things that have come up very recently. One of the things that was covered in the sessions and also on the floor Xperia company has been working closely in the auto community to roll out some services that are very interesting in the automotive front and they work closely with OEMs and broadcasters trying to make these things happen. They're the people that brought us HD radio. They have a new service, or it's like they've been working on it for a while, but it's really becoming deployed at much higher scale now, called DTS Auto Stage, and that's the connected car experience for auto. So it's broadcast radio, streaming and some other services that can be personalized, geotargeted. It sends. If things are all configured properly, it can send data back to radio broadcasters so they like, if there's, you know, five or six million cars in a market with DTS AutoStage equipped, they can report back as authenticated and going through various privacy and data security hoops to say, well, those six million cars, four million are listening to radio and one million are listening to your station right now. So the audience measurement reporting is kind of exciting what's possible. We'll see how that evolves From the consumer perspective. It makes that radio experience very integrated between what's broadcast and the streaming. A lot of personalization, a lot of interactivity that can happen there. So that's very interesting. And one of the things they were showing broadcasters is a heat map. We can show you in real time who's listening to your stations and cars around your market and where they go. So in some cases that shows some surprises and in other cases it's like, okay, good, I thought so, but I can never prove it with other data sources.
Rick Ducey:And then another thing that was authorized by the FCC recently was the ability for FM stations to do over-the-air geotargeting. And the company that introduced this technology and popularized it is a company called Geo Broadcast Solutions and, for disclosure, BIA has worked very closely with Geo Broadcast over the years to refine kind of an education around this technology and do some business analysis and so on, and I've worked a lot on that project personally. But what it allows to do is FM stations to add boosters, both to increase signal strength, improve the coverage in different areas, and now the FCC has started to let these stations originate content in those boosters for a few minutes an hour. So, for example, you may have in New York, Nicole, one of your small markets that you've worked in WBLS. It's like if you want to buy an Adinet radio station, you have to buy the whole New York market.
Rick Ducey:With this geotargeting technology, a station could have a Long Island zone, a Manhattan zone, a New Jersey zone, a zone going down towards Philadelphia, and so it allows more advertisers, at a more affordable rate, to reach their customers just in their business zones. You know the five, six zip codes, maybe where they are. So that is something that the FCC did, as some people were talking about that in the market as well. So some new tech and radio, you know, and actually being deployed in business use cases. It's really good to see.
Christina Hurley:So much going on. So, lastly, what did you each take away from this year's NAB show and, most importantly, what do you think are the big things that are going to happen next that everyone should pay attention to?
Nicole Ovadia:Sure, I'll jump in first. First of all, I mean everything that Rick was just talking about in terms of technology, and again this brings it back to what I was saying at the beginning with the small and medium market. Radio and television, in my mind, is stay connected to their communities and serve their communities, and that has not changed and I don't think it will change. I think all of these technologies are ways in which we can enhance that connection to the community and I also believe that it's these are all advantages, further advantages for these media in competing with, you know, the Googles and the, you know and the Facebooks and the Metas of the world, because they have these connections to the local community. So at this point, in my mind, all this technology is kind of available to everybody. I mean, you know, any media outlet can kind of sell virtually any platform or any delivery, social, whatever CTV, ott. But what makes television and radio special is their connections to the communities, is their connections to their clients and their ability to move people through the funnel. So people are changing the way they consume media, but the content, the actual content that is created at the local level, is different and it's special and there are. There is technology that's going to help that and enhance that over the next three to five years.
Nicole Ovadia:Of course, who knows what it'll be beyond that? But focus on local. I mean that is my major takeaway from this entire conference is oh my God, how exciting all of this new technology. I'm going to focus on local and figure out ways. Is this new technology helping me to solve my client problems? That would be the way that I would leap and the inspiration that I took from the NAB. Rick, what are your thoughts?
Rick Ducey:I have, I think, probably two takeaways. I'll focus on One takeaway is. I can't believe how overhydrated I got. I think it's going to be at least a month before I'll even think about having another iced tea after a few days of back-to-back meetings.
Nicole Ovadia:My liver is in pain, exactly.
Rick Ducey:At one point somebody came up to me and said oh, my feet are killing me from all the walking around and I never actually made it to the show floor. I was over on the encore wind with all these meetings, and so I said oh, that's actually interesting, my feet are killing me this year. And then Christina looks at me and says Rick, you've been sitting on your butt for three days.
Rick Ducey:And I said good point so, yeah, iced tea galore to try to stay sane there. But the other takeaway is you know these shows like NAB and some other shows will gin up some excitement and some buzz. For NAB, typically it's been around technology, which is, you know, legitimate, and you want to keep up with that. But really more at this show than other shows for a long time is that inflection from what could be and what's being trialed and what's coming up to? No, we're doing it. Here's how we're putting the technology on the street. So there was more of that this year, as I was talking about both in radio and TV. So that's really exciting to see an industry going through an actual transformation.
Rick Ducey:Nicole, you mentioned audiences. Audiences clearly have changed, advertisers have different expectations and some of the partners auto home, the technology partners with software, ai coming into the industry. It's making fundamental structural changes in what broadcast is and what media is, and we started to see some business outcomes more strong than I have noticed in the past. So I'm excited to come back again to NAB next year and say so how far have you guys gotten and who else is doing new stuff that's really impactful in the industry?
Nicole Ovadia:But you will not have gotten any steps further because you'll still be sitting in that bar Got it.
Christina Hurley:Maybe, so, Nicole and Rick, thank you so much. It's been so much fun hosting this podcast with you and getting your perspective on the key topics at the NAB show. I'm sure there's much, much more to unpack over the next several months, so I look forward to hosting another podcast soon where we can give everyone an update on what's happening. Thank you for joining us today for this Leading Local Insights podcast. If you have any thoughts about what we discussed today or would like to hear how BIA could help you this year, we'd welcome a chance to talk to you. Just email our team at info at biacom.