A Look at NAB’s 2025 Spring Show
April 2025 – It has been the yearly run for more than 25 years: the Spring National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show – except for those pandemic cancellations in 2020 and 2021. (In fact, if you discount those two years, this was the 100th NAB Convention.)
From its start in 1923 with fewer than two dozen attendees, at one time, attendance was over 100,000 – one of the main reasons it is in Las Vegas. Few other cities have anywhere near the convention space as Las Vegas. And the LVCC continues to grow!
2025: A DIFFICULT YEAR
This year, there were several reasons why the attendance continued a bit thin: a total of 55,000 were registered, according to the NAB, slightly down from 61,000 last year.
About 53% came for the first time, with 26% from other countries (Canada was right after the US).
Some pointed to the current unstable economic times. Not just the political atmosphere, but radio has had a rough couple of years with big bankruptcies and stock losses – not to mention the large number of stations selling their towers to a newer breed of consolidators. One company with a large number of stations was reported to have a net worth of just $7.4 million.
Sadly, the engineering community has suffered a lot of layoffs and retirements, with some engineers literally travelling hundreds of miles on a regular basis.
This has had a major impact on manufacturers. Sales have been very soft in 2024, and things continue a bit unclear, with the potential for tariff disruptions. For quite a few, it seems like it was better to come and say “We’re still standing” than invest in major new products that might have supply issues, for example.
Still, there were some nice things to see and so great people to talk to during the Show.
A GOOD START
As usual, Nautel held its NUG on Sunday morning.
Nearly 300 attendees were there to hear the company discuss its current activities and what they were doing this year.
The problem of age was shown, as usual, when it was asked how many in the room were under 50 … 40 … 30 …
There was a lot of experience in the room, although when the question of those solid on AM was asked, hands were very few.
The Show floor also opened on Sunday morning, along with a number of engineering sessions that had been going for the past several days. But by afternoon, there were a good number of folks walking the floor, looking at the gear.
As it was last year, with most of the radio folks in West Hall, there still was a lot of walking to get to the newly renovated North Hall. (Central Hall and half of South Hall were also under construction with a promise that all radio will be in the “new” Central Hall next year: April 18-22, 2026). True, the Tesla shuttle was running, but my vote would have been for “People Mover” walkways. My phone reported something like 16,500 steps a day. Ouch! Good thing I had comfortable shoes!!
SOMETIMES THE FLOOR WAS VERY BUSY
Those that found their way around to the Lawo booth were treated to some fantastic German Apple Strudel and Pretzels, flown in for the show. It was hard to walk away with empty fingers and not gorge out on the goodies! At the end of the day, some German beers were dispensed. No wonder the booth was full!
There also was a big churn of people on the floor when Penn & Teller showed up to get their award. In fact, very few people got in, relatively speaking. There was a long line flood of people standing in West Hall that could not get in – probably a perfect indication of how popular Penn & Teller have been for 50 years.
Yes, there was a BDR get-together. Given the schedule and distances, we ended up with one of the few places you could walk to from West Hall, and we ended up at dinner time.
From the look of the folks who came and the conversation, all had a good time. And we really appreciated some assistance from BSW USA, Angry Audio, the Telos Alliance, and Henry Engineering to keep the pizza’s coming until we were all full.
WALKING THE FLOOR
OK, AI was the sub-theme of the Show. It was all over the place, from applications that “learned” things to a walking robot.
As I spoke to the different companies, here is something that came through to me. 40 years ago, 30 years ago, automation started to become very common in broadcast. And it was a great time for broadcasters to use this technology to improve the presentation. It started with pre-taped music or programming, and systems that would sequence commercials, time checks, weather reports, and all that. On the other hand, eventually, satellite programs mated with automation to let stations run unattended for hours, even during local emergencies.
So now we have AI you can use. It can be a good thing. For instance, StreamGuys showed a use for AI for spot control, and Sam from Axel.io demonstrated how AI can go through your archives and index them for you. maybe you are looking for something that had been on the air the week before last, right? And if you have an archive of programs, podcasts, they could go back, you know, a week, six months, 20 years or whatever and find it. It will pull out all the key words and phrases and index it for you so you know exactly when and how a certain topic was covered or a certain talent or something like that.
Insoft, which brings AI automation to the hybrid studio, is now in its 5th generation.
Able to handle traditional automation – music and traffic scheduling – the Insoft HDV Mixer serves audio and video files for easy integration into the streams. Full control of the cameras, including activation and following the source is part of the system.
As with all good things, you have to watch out. Yes, chatGPT and the other similar AI products will scour the web and answer questions. You know, that is good. But then if you sit and you realize if AI does not really find everything, it makes up references. It makes up statements that are not true. And so, you have to watch what they bring back to you very carefully to see if it is worth repeating, much less holding on to. By the way, there is a “No Fakes Act” being introduced in Congress to try to keep a partial lid on things as we have recently seen a number of very high-profile people, politicians or actors whose face has been AI’d into something that they did not even say nor would never say.
OTHER GEAR ON THE FLOOR
Consoles are getting more and more complex or simple, depending upon how you view them.
More than just key switches and pots, the latest consoles can incorporate features that had to be add-ons and sometime problems in matching levels and controls. The most modern consoles, like the Lawo and the Axel Audio products do take a bit of programming, but they get everything in – and you can control it from virtually anywhere.
For an example, want to adjust a multiband equalizer vis touch screen. Quickly adjust levels, change inputs and outputs. A few buttons and a console can be customized for any studio use.
Lawo even has a “Home” application that brings consoles in many places together, bringing the audio needed to the right place.
Over in the Axel Audio booth, the Oxygen 3000 from 8 to 16 channels contains almost any feature you can think of to add.
The latest Oxygen 3000 Plus even builds in its own telephone system, complete with mix-minus.
The folks from Axel promise to do a video presentation for us soon.
NEXTGEN
NextGen TV is the next biggest thing that you saw all over the floor. You have been reading about it for several years, and in some markets it is beginning to do more than simply put six programs on one transmitter.
They are pushing harder and harder, along with the NAB, to get rid of ATSC 1 and replace it with ATSC3 everywhere. There are some benefits, again, things you can do. All sorts of possibilities. If everybody were running their own ATSC3, you could have anything from radio and video sent to cars to TV streams or weather data, whatever.
One company of LPTV stations has just petitioned the commission to use their frequency with their 5G NextGen to do just data streams. It will be interesting to see how that works out.
WHAT CAUGHT THE EYE
With so many home studios and audio in the cloud, it was interesting to see some of the items designed to take advantage of the layout.
Shure has a version of the MV7+ podcast microphone with built-in software to run a dual channel interface, controlling levels, etc.
If you are doing a talk show, the MV7+ does not require external mixers, etc.
This is something that could be used for on-the-spot localism – or merely another feed from afar?
Over at the Orban booth, I got to see Bob Orban.
It is amazing to stop and consider it has been 50 years since the 8000A changed FM broadcast.
Bob continues to work on audio processing that gives the operator a lot of control over the audio chain while preserving its clarity and integrity.
I also got to sit down with Frank Foti for a while and talk about his Syndicate of Sounds Déjà Vu project that makes a 5.1 immersive audio experience easy to set up.
By taking a standard stereo audio mix and upgrading it to a true, discrete 5.1 surround sound, almost anyone can easily turn their living room into a concert hall.
THE RF SIDE
In the same area, I also got to see Tom King at Kintronics and Tom Silliman at ERI – two of the greatest Toms on the floor! Both have long contributed to the industry and are always happy to share their knowledge and expertise to help broadcasters.
Kurt Gorman at the Phasetek booth was there, along with some others, to discuss the High-Efficiency Broadband Antenna (HEBA) low profile antenna that has been making waves in Massachusetts over the past couple of years, and now has full FCC approval for 24 hour operation.
As usual, GatesAir and Nautel had some nice transmitters, and the new AUI for the Nautel GV2 and VX series has been improved a lot.
Over in the Aqua Broadcast booth, we met another couple of old friends: Brandan Lofty and David Reeves. Brandon was showing off the Aqua transmitters which among other things had several features that fit the “I wish we had …” theme:
The C-300 comes with two power supplies and – get this – a timer on the local/remote switch, so even if you forget to put the transmitter back in remote, it will automatically do so when programmed.
Just a few feet away, Reeves was showing off his new Zen10 audio processor, a fitting successor to his famous Ariane.
Remote Control of transmitter sites has gotten quite complex, as more and more equipment comes with Internet connectivity. Of course, that means a lot of different apps to access each item – and all too often they are connected directly to the Internet. An interesting step has been taken by Shively Labs, now a part of American Amplifier Technology, which debuted its EmPower control system.
EmPower starts with a look at the power system at a transmitter site. Line Voltage and Phase are only the start. The system is designed to integrate everything from relays to transmitters, both in data delivery and alarm notification.
Designed with security in mind, the EmPower system is fully encrypted and isolated from the basic Internet access.
NAB IS ACTIVE
By the way, It is not just trade shows that drives the NAB.
The president of the NAB, Curtis LeGate, was talking about how broadcasters play a vital role in their communities and localism. They are not always focused on the tech side but the NAB did announce they were behind six priorities.
LeGate said, first of all, it was concerned with modernizing antiquated broadcast rules concerning ownership. That is a top priority. Second one, keeping AM radio in cars. And that is a fight the NAB has taken on with the consumer technology folks, CTA.
Then there is supporting NextGen television and preventing harmful changes to advertising tax deductibility. The NAB is opposed to the new performance tax on local radio. And a last one, protecting the broadcaster’s content in local materials.
We can also hope to see the NAB actually nudge the big chains, the consolidators, and such into finding new ways to make it possible for stations to doing local things of note.
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