NAB-RTNDA 2008

A couple Las Vegas leftovers from TVNewser's coverage of the 2008 NAB-RTNDA conference.

Before leaving Las Vegas Wednesday night, TVNewser stopped by Trader Vic's at the Planet Hollywood Hotel & Casino. The occassion: the launch of VegasHD, also known as Robin Leach's fourth act. Leach headlined the event for a small gathering of NAB attendees. Vegas HD, with support from Sony, has wired the city for HD transmission. There are "drops" at the Planet Hollywood, as well as at the Golden Nugget downtown and off the strip at the Palms Hotel & Casino. VegasHD will help facilitate for the production of a live broadcast in HiDef for any broadcaster who needs it.

Leach went through a litany of "they said it wouldn't works" talking about his early days with CNN, then as host of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and finally his work with Food Network. "And every time it worked," saying it will again with VegasHD. He then added, "From now on what happens in Vegas won't stay in Vegas."

After the jump, a hotel room observation...

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TVNewser caught up with CNN's John King after he moderated a panel at this week's NAB-RTNDA conference. And we were all excited because it was going to be our first video interview. The image to the left is what we got. That's what you get for $200 at B&H. We'll try again soon, newsers.

After the jump, the transcript of the interview...

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Of the more than 1,600 exhibitors trying to pitch their products to the more than 100,000 attendees at the NAB this week, we experienced, oh, five of them. Robotic traffic cameras, HD transmitters and portable satellite uplink units are not the stuff of TVNewser. But one new product launch is. Because it might just be coming to a desktop near you.

Livestation allows users to watch 24-hour news networks on their computer, in real time. Not clips; not webcasts; but the actual channel, live. So far, in beta testing, those networks include ITN, BBC, SkyNews, Al Jazeera and several others. Over the next few months the founders of Livestation will be making their pitch to American channels, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.

The downloadable platform is the branchild of physicist-turned-Internet entrepreneur Matteo Berlucchi. "It's about three things," Berlucchi tells TVNewser. "Choice, alerts and social networking." The choice comes from the aggregation of the news channels so you can watch what you want, when you want. Seconly, Livestation will also include message alert technology pioneered by another of Berlucchi's companies; lastly, the social networking tools will include IM, so you might be at work in New York watching BBC, and message your friend in Hong Kong to watch too.

• The business model, the challenges and a first-ever photo, after the jump...

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(l-r) Stan Cloud, author of The Murrow Boys, Mark Effron, president & COO of TitanTV, Marci Burdick, senior VP of Schurz Communications, ABC's John Cochran, Dr. Betty Winfield, author of The Edward R. Murrow Heritage, CBS Radio News president Harvey Nagler and KOMU-TV news director Stacey Woelfel.

The closing session of this year's RTNDA conference pondered the question "What Would Murrow Do?" The discussion was timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Edward R. Murrow's "wires and lights in a box" speech made to the RTNDA conference on Oct. 15, 1958. The panel was made up of Murrow authors as well as TV and radio executives, and moderated by ABC's John Cochran, (who said he's probably the only person in the room who'd actually met the legendary CBS Newsman; when Cochran was 21-year-old Army staffer working at the Kennedy White House).

The panel did as little "hand wringing" as possible about the current state of the industry (something they all promised to refrain from doing) but instead wondered what Murrow would think of the news media today. "He would have his own show on the History Channel, or Discovery or PBS and a website for investigations," said Shurz Communications senior VP Marci Burdick.

The talk quickly turned to the opportunities and challenges the sheer number of media outlets can present. "You can decide on your own, not from one or four sources, but from 20 sources. I think Murrow would smile at that," said former MSNBC VP Mark Effron. Dr. Betty Winfield took a more pessimistic view of the current state of affairs suggesting the networks themselves monitor blogs. So a reader would know "this is a lie or this is not true."

And as for the digitization of the business, which, in some cases, has lead to job loses, Effron, now with digital media company TitanTV cautioned, "[Journalists] are going to play a vital role in the future of news or become obsolete," said Effron.

Cochran ended the discussion with a message to the young journalists in the room, that there are other Murrows out there. These days, Cochran said, "We at ABC ask, 'what would Peter do?'"

Blogging from the 2008 NAB-RTNDA conference in Las Vegas.

John King eat your heart out. The real maestro of the Magic Wall, Jeff Han, founder and chief scientist of Perceptive Pixel, gave TVNewser an up close look at the technology today at the NAB show in Las Vegas. And this baby can do more than just tell you which Pennsylvania counties will go for Obama and which will go for Clinton. As is evidenced by the image overload on the screen.

Han did tell us King patented the "two finger swipe," where a swath of the country can be highlighted with two lines drawn by two fingers of the same hand. As one Perceptive Pixel rep joked, "you have the bible belt, the borscht belt and the bitter belt."

Blogging from the 2008 NAB-RTNDA conference in Las Vegas.

Fox News Channel airs on the monitors inside the resturant (and the nearby Starbucks) at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

And look who's outside...

CNN Newsource, the affiliate news service, has a tent where local station clients meet with Newsource managers.

Blogging from the 2008 NAB-RTNDA conference in Las Vegas.

NBC's Ron Allen and ABC's Sam Donaldson on the big screen at this morning's NAB Super Session: a discussion about the 2008 Presidential race.

As RTNDA chairwoman Barabara Cochran put it in her introduction, "over a century of political reporting" took to the stage this morning at the NAB-RTNDA conference in Las Vegas. CNN's John King (first election reporting gig, 1988) moderated a discussion of the 2008 campaigns with NBC's Ron Allen, 40-year ABC vet Sam Donaldson, former ABC correspondent Linda Douglass, now with National Journal, as well as John Harris of Politico.com and Peter Maer of CBS News radio.

In addition to talking about the candidates, the campaigns, and the issues, King asked about the media's role this time around: "do [the candidates] treat us differently?" Yes, was the answer.

"They have had to deal with a lot of cameras," said NBC's Allen. And blogs too. Donaldson told a story about being with a group of "20-something" staffers at ABC in New York and how they were buzzing about the importance of Perez Hilton's support of Hillary Clinton. "I don't know why anyone would want that" but "he matters."

And the political story that continues to resonate even today, Sen. Obama's "bitter" pill. Douglass talked about how that story came, not from a reporter, but an Obama supporter, who wrote about it on the Huffington Post. "There was no editor...she is not getting paid." Stories "do not adhere" to standards including "accuracy."

As for how a new president will affect broadcasters and journalists, Douglass said all three candidates are against expanding ownership. If you're big media planning to get bigger, "all three will give you heartburn." Maer added, "all three are for shield laws" which protect journalists and their sources.

Click continued for more pictures, the story of John King's jeans and Sam Donaldson's big leap...

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Blogging from the 2008 NAB-RTNDA conference in Las Vegas.

Patti Dennis, VP/news director at KUSA-TV: Lynn Jimenez, business reporter for KGO-AM; Carrie Schwab Pomerantz, chief strategist for Charles Schwab; and FBN's Stuart Varney participate in a financial reporting discussion.

Fox Business Network anchor Stuart Varney moderated a discussion on the business of business reporting. With the U.S. economy either in or nearing a recession, the talk took on a more urgent tone about the importance of including business reporting in local news broadcasts.

KGO reporter Lynn Jimenez talked about how being a business reporter meant being a reporter, first. "Last week I was covering the [elusive] torch relay" through San Francisco. To which someone in the audience joked "when you could find it."

At the end, Varney asked the crowd made up of reporters, producers and news managers, what the importance of business reporting boils down to: "To educate the public" or "for ratings." Most of the crowd rose their hands for the former.

Blogging from the 2008 NAB-RTNDA conference in Las Vegas.

ABC's Sam Donaldson was honored with the RTNDA's Paul White Award for showing "a commitment to service and a passion for excellence." And the passion was in effect Monday night at the Las Vegas Hilton. Donaldson gave a rousing if a bit rambling speech with mentions of Kennedy and Nixon, Reagan and Stockdale. Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, Matt Drudge and Perez Hilton.

Donaldson talked about the others honored before him: Ted Koppel, "best interviewer that we've had:" Charles Osgood, "the gentle giant of our business" and Christiane Amanpour, "who knows everyone of consequence in the world."

Said Donaldson, "I'm not quite certain why I'm here." Twice a White House correspondent, and former co-anchor of Prime Time Live and This Week, Donaldson now anchors Politics Live on ABC News Now. "I think that there are dozens of people watching," he joked.

And while this old school journalist is at the forefront of new media (he anchored the first Webcast for ABC in 1999), he still recognizes the challenges. "Today the problem, of course, there's no time to edit it, to look at it. The number of Web sites and cable channels, the fragmentation," Donaldson lamented. But he is proud of the electronic journalism he sees. "I think, in general, people in this business are doing a better job than ever before"

Blogging from the 2008 NAB-RTNDA conference in Las Vegas.

Simon Marks of Fox News and The Newshour, moderated a panel discussion on consumer product safety in an increasingly globalized world. I know, it sounds stimulating. But it was actually very informative. Marks who, in addition to correspondent duties for FNC and PBS, is also president of Feature Story News.

On the panel (l-r) Gretchen Stanton of the World Trade Organization, Kerry Sanders of NBC News, and former CBS and ABC News correspondent Roberta Baskin who now heads up the investigative unit at WJLA in Washington, DC.