NAB Show New York: US broadcasters rise to the challenges of a changing landscape | Industry trends

The NAB Show New York concluded last week, drawing more than 12,000 attendees, about the same as in 2023 and a few thousand fewer than its pre-pandemic peak. The two-day event comes at a time when US broadcasters are facing serious pressure on their business model and an existential threat from a Trump presidency.

If it were not a presidential election year, US television networks would be even more affected. Political advertising spending at television networks is expected to reach $3.94 billion, up 10% from the last presidential election year of 2020, and the industry’s revenue, including gross national/local commercials, is expected to exceed digital – and retransmission fees will increase by 8.3% to over $40 billion.

“We expect the industry to become increasingly reliant on political advertising revenue in even-numbered years,” said Rose Oberman, head of media and entertainment at S&P Global Ratings. “At the same time, many local television stations are facing refinancing of upcoming debt maturities at higher interest rates in 2026 and beyond. “As a result, we expect EBITDA to gradually decline and cash flow to weaken.”

S&P Global Ratings has already downgraded several local television networks, including Cox Media Group, Gray Media, Sinclair and EW Scripps, giving them a negative outlook.

This is important on a show like NAB, which is owned by Gray, CMG, Sinclair, Scripps and 8,000 other members of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). At its second event of the year on the East Coast, the lobby group continued to argue that its battle against streamers like YouTube TV would be lost unless the government intervened.

NAB specifically calls on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate OTT programming providers on par with traditional pay-TV providers such as Charter Communications and Comcast.

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The issue is important for broadcast groups that believe they can increase their retransmission revenues if they are able to negotiate directly with YouTube TV, Fubo, Hulu and other multi-channel virtual video programmers (vMVPDs).

As TV Technology reports, the discussion has divided the broadcast industry between station owners who want vMVPDs reclassified and broadcast networks of major media companies who want to continue doing business with online providers under much larger distribution agreements.

Currently, broadcast groups are conducting retrans negotiations with traditional multichannel video programmers (MVPDs) such as Charter Communications and Comcast. But broadcasters and major programming providers such as The Walt Disney Co. and Paramount Global are retransmitting deals with vMVPDs because the streaming services are not classified as traditional pay-TV operators (or MVPDs) under FCC rules.

“It is impossible to understand the needs of local broadcasters without addressing the fundamental changes brought about by streaming,” NAB Chief Legal Officer Rick Kaplan said in a recent letter to the FCC. “The Commission’s rules were designed for a different world, and if the agency is truly committed to ensuring local services for communities across the country, then it must examine the interplay between local broadcasting, the dramatic rise of streaming and the unregulated big tech giants have destroyed the economic foundations of local journalism.”

The broadcast also coincided with Hurricane Milton, whose coverage on local television highlighted its critical importance in serving communities, said Jennifer Mitchell, president of CBS Stations, at the NAB conference in New York.

“Local news is so incredibly important and will continue to be important,” she said. “Local journalists know how to report [Hurricane Milton] better than anyone else. That won’t change. The question is: How are we going to disseminate this information? How will viewers consume this information? It’s important for us to be in all of these different places and serve the consumer.”

While Mitchell was at NAB NY, Donald Trump demanded that CBS News’ broadcast license be revoked for editing an election interview with Kamala Harris.

This is not dismissed as posturing, because if Trump wins the White House and implements the right-wing manifesto “Project 2025,” it would force the FCC to censor all media companies and their licensed outlets for negative coverage of the president.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel released a statement saying these threats to free speech are serious and should not be ignored. Rosenworcel wrote: “The First Amendment is a cornerstone of our democracy. The FCC does not and will not revoke licenses from broadcast networks simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage.”

CTV scale

At the show conference, representatives from CBS News, NBCUniversal Local and EW Scripps discussed “Advanced Streaming and FAST Revenue Strategies for Local Television.”

There was optimism about the possibility of using data with AI to deliver more targeted content and advertising. They also agreed that scale was needed to reach audiences across multiple platforms.

Tom Sly, vice president of strategy at Scripps, said: “We have some colleagues who are afraid to promote connected TV and they are afraid to talk about it… but we have to wake up and say that the business and the audience “We have to change with them and we have to act quickly.”

In another session focused solely on Tubi, CEO Anjali Sud said the Fox-owned FAST service is exploring fan-driven content development as a unique area of ​​user engagement and growth. “We just launched the first fan-run streaming studio, designed to allow anyone to pitch an idea, approved by Tubi and distributed on Tubi based on fan feedback. Fans will make the show. We’re working with Color Creative to help them succeed, and we’ll find out if that’s a model that works. I’m interested in the scalable and efficient ways to bring unique stories from unique storytellers.”

The AV convergence

As the broadcast market stagnates and technology shrinks, providers are expanding their sales activities into adjacent sectors, particularly in the corporate, government, academic and financial worlds. Like IBC this year, NAB is making its exhibition more attractive to those buyers, saying it has executives from Bank of America, Best Buy, Dell, Ford, IBM, JP Morgan Chase, the US Air Force and the US Military Academy Guested among core audiences on ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, HBO and Univision.

“Technologies like virtual production and low-cost cinema cameras are making content creation much more accessible to non-broadcasters, but what has led to a real acceleration in the convergence of broadcast and AV is the ability to expand content delivery directly ,” says Ciaran Doran, CEO of cloud broadcast provider M2A Media.

“Brands have woken up to the fact that they have built a direct one-to-one relationship with their customers and that the next step is to communicate via live video and build an even closer bond with them.”

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