The NAB Show New York panel “The Business of FAST: Monetization, Market Saturation and Viewer Engagement” went down October 24, and looked at how free ad-supported streaming television platforms have grown so fast, and what is next for them. A couple panelists mentioned “decision fatigue” on AVOD (advertising based video on demand) channels, and suggested FAST platforms offer users a more direct path to the content they want. 

Matthew Dominguez, director, digital distribution and partnerships, Cox Media Group, said FAST avoids “that infinite scroll, looking for something you want.” He said Cox’s FAST channels provide users “another way for people to watch our live local news.”

NAB New York is happening at the Javits Center in Manhattan October 24-26. 

Jonathan Hurd, partner at tech consultant Altman Solon, moderated the panel. 

Lindsey Stewart, VP of FAST and AVOD revenue strategy, AMC Networks, said the networks’ audiences cover “a broad swath of genres,” and the FAST channels, including The Walking Dead Universe and AMC En Español, offer users more “targeted streaming environments.”

Hedvig Arnet, VP of business development at Vevo, sounded a similar note, saying the platform offers “a huge array of FAST channels across all genres and decades,” including pop, country and hip-hop, with some 800,000 music videos available to users. “We really try to cater to all,” she said. 

David Simon, Moloco general manager of growth initiatives, said FAST channels are in a position to build uniquely solid long-range relationships with users. “The loyalty among subscribers in SVOD is actually pretty terrible,” he said, citing major churn on both SVOD and AVOD. “It’s a really wide open space. You can really flex your muscles if you have in-demand content.”

Simon added that buying advertising on digital platforms is very complicated, with a wide range of data points, prices and other factors facing the buyer. “How do you create pockets that feel natural to what you’re selling?” he said. “As a buyer you have to be really thoughtful” about the platforms you are investing in. 

Arnet said the user data for platforms delivering TV episodes and movies may be solid, but the data for considerably shorter music videos is not so much. “The data we need to be even more granular, but these platforms are not set up with that in mind,” she said. “Mapping all that together and trying to make sense of it is definitely a challenge.”

Arnet suggested more sharing between parties to improve the data. 

Hurd asked about distribution partners, and Stewart said a partnership has to be mutually beneficial for both the creator and the distributor. “There are so many FAST channels and so many platforms,” she said. “We have to figure out how our portfolio can complement theirs.”

Simon called the FAST forum “a really exciting space.”

He added, “There’s a huge opportunity for people who have good content.”

NAB Show New York happens October 24-26 at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan. The National Association of Broadcasters produces the show, which it calls “the premier event for content economy professionals to reconnect, reevaluate and rediscover ways to get more creative with new-to-market tech and existing tools through exhibits, conferences and networking events.”

NAB Show New York will feature 255 exhibitors, 214 speakers and 175 sessions. Brands on display include Harmonic, Grass Valley, Blackmagic Design, Avid, LiveU and Ross Video. 

Exhibits include the Tech Chat Stage, which features technological breakthroughs in TV and film, and the new Photo+Video Lab, which showcases the hybrid mix of equipment used to best capture and produce content. 

Tuesday, October 24 offers the AI Creative Summit, Post Production Conference and Streaming Summit, the latter with executives from Netflix, Prime Video, Paramount Plus and other streamers. Exhibits open Wednesday, October 25, including Tech Chat Stage, Photo+Video Lab, Cine+Live Lab and Insight Theater. Wednesday also features the Marconi Awards, given to the best in radio. 

Thursday’s schedule includes the Broadcast Content Summit, Cybersecurity for Broadcasters Retreat, Director of Photography Creative Conference and Visual Storytelling Conference. 

NAB Show happens in Las Vegas April 13-17. 

NAB Show New York happens at the Jacob Javits Center in New York October 24-26. Educational seminars start October 24 and exhibits take place October 25-26. 

Produced by the National Association of Broadcasters and held annually, NAB Show New York offers hands-on learning, discovery and insights into the technology and business strategies that are transforming media and entertainment.

Among the many seminars and sessions lined up for October, Streaming Summit occurs October 24 and 25, and touches upon bundling of content, live streaming and monetizing video. The Marconi Awards, given out to the best in radio, happens October 25, as does TV2025: Monetizing the Future, which brings together TV station group C-level talent to discuss how changing technology is affecting revenue. Broadcast Content Summit, a dual-track program for content producers, programmers, talent, production and creative professionals, happens October 26. 

Close to 10,000 attendees checked out the 2022 New York show, with 245 exhibitors. 

Registration is open for the 2023 affair. 

The annual NAB Show happens in Las Vegas April 13-17, 2004. 

The NAB Show New York panel “Broadcasting and the Metaverse” looked at how augmented and virtual reality are changing, and hopefully enhancing, what the viewer sees at home. Hardie Tankersley, principal at Reality Fabrication, moderated the October 20 panel. Komal Bhukhanwala, senior art director, CBS Sports, was on the panel with Tao Li, technical producer and supervisor, Fuse Technical Group, and A.J. Wedding, virtual production director, Orbital Studios. 

Bhukhanwala described her mission as, “How can you make the fake as real as possible and how do you get your reflections as close to real-world as possible?”

Bhukhanwala spoke of AR and enhanced graphics and their ilk as “trying to up the production value a little bit” for the viewers. 

For Li, “The idea is to transform the artist and the talent into a location that we normally can’t reach.”

Bhukhanwala said team mascots are often a key aspect of augmenting a sports broadcast. 

She said a small team looks at how the production came together in the past, then tries “to see if there's a better way to tell the same story, or tell a different story–and have some fun with it.”

NAB NY is at the Javits Center on the west side of Manhattan. 

Panelists spoke of both keeping the current audience engaged, including hard to reach younger viewers, and attracting a new audience. 

Wedding, whose TV work includes Snowfall and Justified, mentioned aiming to “blur that line between virtual and real.”

Li said there’s a fair amount of “expectation management” with clients. “Here are the options we can create with the technology we have,” he said. “There’s a lot of back and forth discussion about what is realistically possible.”

Nothing is impossible, he added, though money and time are pressing issues. 

What lies ahead for television and the metaverse is wide open. “I can’t even start to say what the metaverse is,” Bhukhanwala said. ■

Nick Cannon, host and executive producer of Fox's The Masked Singer, will host the Marconi Radio Awards at the New York NAB Show on Oct. 19. Ryan Seacrest will receive the NAB Distinguished Service Award at the show. 

Cannon serves as executive producer and host of his nationally syndicated radio show Nick Cannon Radio and Cannon's Top 30 Weekend Countdown. He is also known for Nick Cannon Presents: Wild 'N Out which has seen comics such as Kevin Hart, Katt Williams and Pete Davidson and Mikey Day from Saturday Night Live.

Cannon began his career on Nickelodeon's sketch-comedy show All That and The Nick Cannon Show. His film appearances include Drumline, Love Don't Cost a Thing and Roll Bounce. He also serves as label head and music business curator of Ncredible Entertainment, responsible for acts such as H.E.R. and Kehlani. He has served as chairman of the TeenNick Network since 2009.

“NAB is excited to be joined by the talented Nick Cannon and [DJ Scratch] to honor the on-air voices and local stations that have shined brightest over the past year as we return to an in-person Marconi Radio Awards,” said April Carty-Sipp, NAB executive VP of industry affairs. “We look forward to welcoming the broadcast community to this crowd-pleasing and lively celebration of the best in radio.” 

Paul and Fred Jacobs will be receiving the National Radio Award, the first time it's ever been given to two people. ■

New York -- Tech giants like Amazon are expected to move more aggressively into the sports rights business as rights deals come up, but it will continue to be at a gradual pace, according to a panel discussion at the NAB Show NY here Wednesday.

In the past, tech companies like Amazon have shaken up the market with their entrance into the sports rights fray, but while the deals have made headlines, they didn’t require a huge outlay of cash, said Sports Media Advisors CEO Doug Perlman at the panel discussion, Sports Rights and the Future of Broadcasting.

“This time around it will be a material deal -- not a prime package -- but a digital player that secures significant exclusive rights,” Perlman said.

Amazon paid about $50 million for streaming rights for 10 Thursday Night Football games in 2017, later renewing that deal for an undisclosed amount for the 2018-19 seasons. 

But the panelists were split in estimating big tech’s interest in rights deals as they come up. The NFL is the highest profile league to come up for renewal -- its deal expires in 2021-2022 -- but there are other leagues that will step up to the stage like Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association in the next several years.

Horizon Media SVP, director of Horizon Media Sports Investment team Adam Schwartz said he expects a major tech player to take a bigger slice of NFL rights this time around.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they broke out part of the Sunday window with one of these players,” Schwartz said. “The money is going to be there regardless of what they do.”

Bevilacqua Helvant Ventures co-founder Chris Bevilacqua was a little more cautious.

“I think the NFL will sell a package, but I’m skeptical tech players are ready for an all-in jump like that. They seem to be so far dabbling with little sports deals,” Bevilacqua said, noting Amazon’s participation as a minority equity partner in The New York Yankees and Sinclair Broadcast Group’s purchase of the YES Network from Disney. 

“The NFL is an order of magnitude beyond that,” Bevilacqua added. “I’m not sure I see that yet.”

New York -- Despite the number of available stations dwindling as the industry continues to consolidate, a panel of top broadcast executives at the NAB Show New York said there was still room for more deals.

Nexstar Media, which completed its $7.2 billion purchase of Tribune Media Group in September, making it the largest station group in the country with nearly 200 stations, sees some opportunities to add scale. Chairman and CEO Perry Sook said that M&A prospects are limited by federal ownership regulations, but he added that other station groups are expected to seek additional scale.

Sook noted that the available pool of stations is shrinking: In 2001 there were 36 companies in local TV that had a national reach of 2% or greater. Now that has dwindled to about a dozen companies.

“There are fewer companies left to buy,” Sook said. He added that “M&A is not as easy as hitting button and buying a stock. I don’t know what’s on the horizon, but I predict there will be M&A.”

Meredith Local Media Group president Patrick McCreery said that he expects that outside money, particularly from private equity groups, will continue to flow into the sector, beefing up the M&A opportunities.

“It [the broadcast business] isn’t new and it isn’t sexy,” McCreery said. “But it is profitable.”

The executives seemed to take exception with analysts that have predicted that one of the more consistent growth engines in the business -- retransmission consent revenue -- was on the decline.

At the TVB Forward conference last month Wolfe Research managing director Marci Ryvicker predicted that retrans revenue would slow to around 7% growth after 2024, flattening out in later years. Other analysts have also predicted a slowdown, especially as cable operators continue to lose video subscribers.

Sook said that he still sees double-digit percentage growth on the retrans front, with McCreery and Gray TV president and co-CEO Patrick LaPlatney in agreement.

Driving that optimism is the belief that broadcasters account for about 35% of TV viewership while capturing just 18% of the revenue. And though achieving total parity -- which Ryvicker predicted would mean a consumer’s retrans bill would rise to $28 per month -- isn’t necessarily in the cards, the panelists believe there is room to get closer.

“The numbers are rough, but we think there is some runway there,” LaPlatney said.

Sizing Up Cannabis Ad Prospects

On the advertising front, the panelists said the nascent move toward impressions-based advertising, which would make it easier for advertisers to buy a broadcaster's full audience across all platforms, would result in a 5% to 10% increase in ad revenue easily. Even before that, though, they said there is still life in traditional broadcaster ad categories.

While auto ads have declined along with car sales, execs said that other segments have picked up, including legal and professional services. McCreery said that professional services were on par with auto for the first time ever at Meredith stations in calendar Q1 and Q2. Broadcasters are expected to take a smaller bite of political ads in this cycle, though, as digital grows. Some predict broadcast’s share will drop from 66% to 57% of total political ad revenue this year. Station execs said they were taking action to try to address the decline. McCreery said at Meredith, which also has a publishing unit, direct mail ads could factor into to taking the edge off some of the political declines. 

Sook said growth in TV ad revenue is usually fueled by the emergence of a new segment, something he says he hasn’t seen yet. But McCreery said there is a potential windfall in the cannabis category. “None of us want to touch it with a ten-foot pole right now because of the legislation, but that’s a pot of money I’d like to get my hands into,” McCreery said.

There are legal hurdles, though, as McCreery acknowledged. Cannabis sales outside of medical purposes are only legal in a handful of states and are illegal at the federal level. Sook said Nexstar has been approached about running ads in the past, and has declined.

“We’ve been approached, and we’ve said we’re a federally regulated entity just like the banks and until it’s deemed OK to do business with these folks, we’ve got more at risk than that,” Sook said.

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