Complete Story
04/20/2017
NAB 2017 readies for big broadcaster, cable turnout
The National Association of Broadcasters is once again gearing up for its annual show in Las Vegas.
This year NAB is expecting about 103,000 attendees and nearly 1,900 exhibitors (with about one-third of each coming in from outside the U.S.) to spread out over about 1 million square feet of space.
“We build a mid-size city and then tear it down a few days later,” said Dennis Wharton, executive vice president of communications for NAB, who added that there could be more cable industry attendees this year since NCTA, The Internet and Television Association, is no longer holding an annual show.
In fact, one of this year’s keynotes will feature Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei, who’s running the newest entrant in the U.S. cable industry.
Going into this year’s show the big issues facing TV broadcasters will of course be the incentive auction—which at long last wrapped up on March 30—and the resulting channel repack process that has only just begun. Broadcasters who sold their spectrum during the auction have 39 months to move their signal to a new channel—and do so without causing major interruptions to service—or risk being kept off the air. Vendors like Dielectric and GatesAir will be at the show showing off antennas and RF systems built to help TV broadcasters efficiently pull off the channel repack.
Also top of mind for broadcasters will be the next-generation broadcast standards known as ATSC 3.0, which are due to be finalized soon and authorized by the FCC by the end of 2017.
