LAS VEGAS – If traditional broadcasters are going to be successful in our altered media world, they have to abandon yesterday`s terminology, David K. Rehr, the president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters told the assembled delegates opening the convention this morning.
The NAB show is a $50 billion marketplace with over 105,000 delegates, so what can a few words mean to such a rich industry?
Plenty, if you continue to use words that let others define you or your arguments. “The words we use matter,” said Rehr.
He pointed to how in-band on channel radio, or IBOC, is now gaining traction as an audio format and with U.S. consumers once the clunky technical acronym was dropped in favour of HD Radio. Rehr added that some of the terms used today would be akin to the car industry of 2007 referring to their wares as “horseless carriages”
The words/terms that have to go? Multicasting and must-carry. Cable wants nothing to do with either and broadcasters are lobbying government to let them offer multiple signals within their digital stream and ensuring the cable companies carry the new signals.
Cable wants to strip the new digital feeds out – and that’s how the NAB will pitch it. “This is in effect, stripping,” he said, adding that despite the convention’s location, “The NAB is anti-stripping.”
“We’re asking the cable companies not take… the anti-competitive step of stripping out our channels.”
The next term on Rehr’s hit list? Downconversion. Cable operators want the right to downconvert broadcasters’ HD signals to analog for a number of reasons related to bandwidth and box penetration (or lack thereof). The NAB’s new term for such a model is “digital discrimination.”
“We will work to prevent the discrimination against high definition,” he added, “to prevent the degrading of our pristine high definition signals.
Term number three: Performance rights. The issue here is similar to the issue in Canada – record companies and artists want more money from radio.
“It’s not about a right. It’s about a wrong that record companies are seeking to perpetuate,” explained Rehr, adding record companies “should pay us,” for playing their music.
“We will fight it with everything we have.”
Term #4 is “merger” – as in the proposed merger of XM Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio and NAB opposes the word in this instance because, “It is not a merger they seek… it is a government sanctioned monopoly,” said Rehr. ““It is about lining the pockets of financiers, lawyers and corporate executives.
“The bad business decisions of Sirius and XM should not be rewarded by the government,” he added.
Finally, it’s time to ditch the word terrestrial – as in “terrestrial broadcaster:” – because as a congressman asked Rehr once, “what’s the alternative, extra-terrestrial?”
It’s a word that is “meaningless at best,” added the CEO, preferring something more modern, more demonstrative of what the industry is: Free over-the-air TV or radio. “We were wireless before it was hot,” he said.
Rehr concluded by asking all members to buy into the concept that words matter and to alter their communications because as they work to reinvent their businesses for a digital world, “We must also reinvent our identity… so that perceptions will match our progress.
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After a seven year hiatus, NBC Universal is back in the NAB fold. Association president Rehr used his opening keynote at NAB 2007 to make the official announcement this morning.
