NAB Overview by Patrick Gregston Labeled the "Convergence Marketplace," this year’s NAB convention was really about the convergence of money, power and influence in a confused marketplace where the game is yet to be defined and the winners are uncertain. Although the energy in the halls swirled around products and services, and the focus of media coverage centered on finding a successful business model for the convergence of broadcasting, computing and telecommunications, the big story was one of policy and regulation, or in some areas, a lack of it. A New, Uncertain World for Broadcasters Aside from technological, financial and political challenges, broadcasters now face unprecedented division within their ranks. Of the four major networks, only ABC remains a member of NAB. The others have resigned over the organization’s opposition to overturning limits on television station ownership. Nevertheless, on April 17, the FCC board voted to permit multiple network ownership by a single company. Though the big four won’t be allowed to merge, the ruling permits Viacom to retain UPN while buying CBS. A new president, Congress and FCC chairman add to the uncertainty facing broadcasters. While Congress has mandated the implementation of digital broadcasting and authorized a massive giveaway of the public airwaves to induce broadcasters to convert, the FCC has set policies that broadcasters say limit their ability to do so in an economically sustainable way. The practical issues include insufficient antenna capacity (with an inadequate number of companies qualified to build new ones) and an uneasy consensus about the standards for through-the-air transmission. In addition, the recent appointment of Michael Powell, Colin Powell’s son, to the FCC chairmanship made broadcasters even more apprehensive about their future. FCC Chairman, Michael Powell Powell came to NAB to address the concerns of the broadcast community, but he was hardly reassuring. Questioned by Sam Donaldson, he told a breakfast meeting, "With 84% of American homes paying for their television, and that trend increasing every year, we need to ask ourselves, at what point Sam Donaldson and Michael Powell at the FCC Chairman's Breakfast. is the effort we put into free television worth it? More homes in the U.S. have television than have indoor plumbing. That’s a value statement." He added that cable rates are relatively low, compared to other goods and services. "It would take a huge increase in rates before I would suggest that government should re-regulate cable revenue," he said. He said that there are two timelines for the implementation of digital broadcasting, one decreed by the government with a 2006 deadline for phasing out NTSC, and the other dictated by the marketplace. "If you follow the Congressional timeline, then 300 million new televisions are going to be sold in the next four years," the FCC chairman said. But the marketplace, he said, may not be on the same schedule. Pleading limited influence, he claimed that his job is merely "having the front seat at the revolution. The FCC regulates architecture, not content, as long as consumers are served. We can’t tell broadcasters how to build their businesses." Questioned about the eventual sell-off of analog spectrum to broadcasters, Powell said, "Spectrum auctions have nothing to do with money. This is just an efficient and fair way to handle the issue of what to do with who gets the spectrum." The Rights and Responsibilities of Broadcasters Bracketing Powell’s morning chat were Jack Valenti, who gave the convention’s keynote address, and Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who addressed a breakfast meeting of the evangelical Nat-ional Religious Broadcasters. Valenti called the First Amendment "the most important 45 words I know," and reiterated his personal commitment to "fortify the right of artists to create what they choose without fear of government Jack Valenti, President and CEO of the MPAA gives the opening keynote address. intervention of any kind, at any level, for any reason." While he didn’t address the current debate over digital copy protection, referred to by FCC staffers as the "surprising stumbling block" in the DTV rollout, Valenti did reiterate a statement he made before Congress: "How can there be property, if you can’t protect that property?" Schlessinger’s address stressed the responsibility broadcasters have to their community. Acknowledging her unusual position in the industry – "Who would think that preaching, teaching and nagging would get ratings?" – she professed to have "a mission to encourage people to do the right thing." She called on broad-casters to "protect our children from adult problems." "If you doubt that such protections are necessary, pick up a teen girl magazine at the market," she said. "Just as possession of talent demands our development and use, so does the possession of the tools of communication demand that we exercise the responsibility that goes with the privilege of being a voice in the community." Powell, Valenti and Schlessinger demonstrated that changes in technology bring challenges to our social structures and our values. From the importance of an informed public as the foundation of de-mocracy, to the notion that all individuals must be free to create and speak freely, NAB 2001 de-monstrated the surprising degree to which technology influences who we are and how we live. Digital Cinema While NAB is ostensibly a convention for broadcasters, digital cinema was also covered. In addition to a scheduled seminar, an ad hoc meeting of interested professionals on the last day of the show provided a reality check on just how far away implementation remains. The seminar featured 3 panelists. Barry Rebo, founder of the New York-based production company Rebo Associates, said that all discussions of digital cinema must begin with one question, "Whose digital cinema are we talking about?" Rebo indicated there are two answers. "For Hollywood, digital cinema is really cheap prints," he said. "For the creative individual, digital cinema is the best opportunity for creative survival." Jeff DeVuono, a cinematographer who has worked extensively with digital formats said that high-definition offers one compelling advantage over film – a good night’s sleep. "When I shoot film, I always have those ‘what-ifs’ to agonize over the night after the shoot." Charles Poynton, author of 'A Technical Introduction to Digital Video', asked, "Do these technologies help storytellers do their job?" He pointed out that although digital cinema is a 24-frame-per-second format, "The double bladed shutter of the film projector, which was created to reduce flicker, has no parallel in digital cinema." Explaining how physical factors affect the look of digital cinema, he said, "A producer of media for the internet and the viewing experience of the computer screen, cannot expect that same image to play in a theater or on a television without significant degradation." On the last day of the show, representatives of distributors, production entities and manufacturers, including Disney, Warner Bros., Sony, Universal, Lucasfilm, Paramount, SMPTE, MPAA and the BBC, were part of an impromptu meeting on digital cinema. While recent attention has focused on creating a business model that will pay for installation of digital projection in theaters, the meeting demonstrated a more pressing and overlooked issue: the need for worldwide agreement on common standards and formats and the difficulties involved in establishing them. One speaker, from the SMPTE workgroup set up to create a digital cinema standard, said that his group was not concerned with "small screen" television. But when asked what constituted "small screen," he admitted that the work group had yet to define even that. Nevertheless, the challenges were much better defined and articulated this year than they were at NAB 2000. Solutions weren’t always available, but manufacturers and broadcasters demonstrated a much better understanding of the problems they will need to solve in moving to both digital broadcasting and digital cinema.   Patrick Gregston is a Guild Board Member. He can be reached via email   Reprinted from The Motion Picture Editors Guild Magazine Vol. 22, No. 3 - July/August 2001   Guild Home | Magazine Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 2001, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700