September is a busy month for the radio industry, with a cavalcade of important shows and conferences.This year the NAB RadioShow took place in Dallas, TX at the Hilton Anatole, with an impressive lineup of sessions, speakers and delegates.
Our members, the NAB, had kindly arranged for us to be present on the exhibition floor, with our striking new stand, and a comprehensive set of demonstrations of bothlocalDallasstations, out-of-state stations fromaroundFlorida, and stationsfromEurope. ClearChannel, Cox Media, Frontier Silicon, Global Radio, the EBU and the BBC all contributed to a great and varied display of what hybrid radio can mean for broadcasters and listeners.
I was kept busy across the three days of the show. We were right next to our members HD Radio and Emmis Interactive, who were displaying what they’re doing with the US digital radio platform and interactivity (through Emmis’ Tagstation service), which created a great narrative across the show floor. I enjoyed talking to US broadcasters about how their existing broadcast assets can be enhanced by adding in internet delivered enhancements, and the demo on the HTC One X smartphone was a particular talking point.
As well as talking to broadcasters, I also talked with a delegation from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) (that’s the photo above). They were interested to hear how radio was innovating and able to do new things with broadcast radio.
I talked on two panels at the show. One was specifically about Hybrid Radio, alongside Ben Husmann from Emmis Comms and Joe Harb from Quu. It was a well attended session, and the questions from delegates indicated that they understand that hybrid is a “here and now” opportunity, not a theoretical possibility. I also stepped in to cover Absolute Radio’s COO Clive Dickens on a panel “Making Radio Apps Your New Transmitter“, to which the conclusion seemed to be qualified agreement, but that it would be even better if those apps could use existing broadcast radio assets rather than relying on streaming – so maybe better titled “Making Apps Our Listeners’ New Radios”?
Finally, I presented to a private meeting of one of our members, to update their staff in more detail about the progress of hybrid radio, and to a few other small groups who wanted to understand how hybrid radio could be included in their future plans.
It was a very successful show, and I look forward to our next US show, the NAB Show in Las Vegas, in April. There’s also IFA in Berlin, IBC in Amsterdam, and nextrad.io in London.