When one works in any industry, we automatically assume, I think, that
everyone else knows about our industry – or at least its major events and
gatherings.

Such it is with NATPE, the annual gathering of the National Association of
Television Programming Executives – an annual gathering that used to split
itself between New Orleans and Las Vegas. It was an interesting choice of
cities, one that is naturally decadent and one that was built specifically
to be that way. In either case, thousands of television executives trek
from everywhere, Los Angeles and New York as well as Des Moines and Albany
and every small and large place in between to take a look at what
syndication companies had to offer that year.

Well, that raises another question. Syndication? Think “Rosie”, think
“Oprah”, think “Wheel of Fortune”. Those are syndicated programs, purchased
by individual stations to fill in the blanks where networks programs don’t
go. NBC doesn’t program twenty-four hours a day and something has to go
where they’re not. Not to mention all those television stations that aren’t
affiliated with any network – they need programming too. And thus NATPE was
born a number of years ago and it became a major television market, hitting
its height in the late part of the 20th Century and in the first year of
this.

Then came the bubble burst and media consolidation [AOL Time Warner, etc.,
etc.] and soon there weren’t that many independent television stations that
needed programming. Combine that with a media collapse and you have the
collapse of a market.

Last year NATPE had fallen from twenty two thousand to about six thousand.
It was widely believed that NATPE could be dead if it didn’t show some life
this year.

And show some life it did. Attendance bounced back up to ten thousand.
Deals were done and if the extravagance of yesteryear was gone at least
there were coffee and cookies. Champagne didn’t flow but Sprite did.

It all reflects the changes in television. We now live in an industry of
more modest expectations than in the past. Budgets are very pressed on
every front. The networks, which produce the sitcoms that are the bread and
butter of syndication aren’t producing the hits they once did. Ouch!

Also, there are god alone knows how many cable networks eating away at the
advertising dollars and god alone knows how many other distractions such as
the internet and video games that have been drawing prime demographics away
from the boob tube.

It is not an easy time in television land and this year’s NATPE reflected
that but it also reflected the optimism which is part of the industry and it
has bounced back a bit – something like the economy.

I don’t know how many people know this but NBC pays its bills from Hyderabad
in India as opposed to New York where its corporate headquarters stand.
[Offshore outsourcing is a reality for many industries.] There was a group
from India prowling the floor, looking for opportunities to do editing
there – which isn’t as far fetched as it might seem. Broadband means that
edits can travel the globe faster than Fed Ex.

These technological changes were at the heart of the conversations at NATPE
this year. Everyone in television is working hard to figure out how to make
programs in the new age of a multi channel, multi media universe.

Unlike last year though, there was hope in the air, that somehow television
would figure out a way to create programming in a cost effective way that
would allow us all to continue making livings – though the number who live
in Bel Air may be dropping – and that we might make livings without further
compromising our children. [Now, now, I’m not all that optimistic about
some things.] But it did seem this year that people believed that somehow
some sense was returning to their universe.

Which is exactly what I observe in the rest of the world – somehow the world
seems to be making more sense again. It is not the world we lived in just a
blink of an eye ago but it is a world we can live in and comprehend.