The 2025 NAB Show in Las Vegas was a contradiction wrapped in a conundrum.
While attendance was down for the third straight year to just 55,000, a year-to-year drop of 9.8%, and way down from over 100,000 a decade ago. Most speculation on the drop came from President Trump’s tariff war likely keeping many international attendees away as many as attendance from Asia was noticeably down, while the annual “Great Canadian Suite” party was cancelled due to many questions regarding the trade war with Canada.
Those that did attend were there with clear goals. Most vendors I spoke to said their booths were busier than recent years as most attendees were there with purposes and did seem to have money to spend on projects. In terms of products launches, this year seemed to be a transition year with vendors focusing on enhancing or adding-on to existing products rather than debuting new product lines. Radio World released its annual list of new “Best of Show” products here.
Goals of many shoppers on the floor focused on finding more productive ways to distribute programming and simplifying workflows. Engineers from at least three companies I spoke to were seeking ways to build their own internal shared audio network along the lines of iHeartMedia’s “Format Center” or Townsquare Media’s “TLA” to share music logs and talent across their portfolios. Smaller operators appeared focused on redundancies and operational cost savings, such as enhanced transmitters or cloud based automation.
Northeast Radio Watch’s Scott Fybush noted, “Pretty much every audio, console and networking company on the floor in West Hall (and a few in North) was showing a version of their product that operates at least partially in the cloud. If you’re looking to put a radio station on the air without a physical studio plant, or at least to be able to operate partially remotely, this is your golden age.”
Fybush also noted that some of the console manufacturers are following in the footsteps of the shakeup created by the introduction of RODE’s RODEcaster Pro a few years ago and the move to virtualized studios. Every major console manufacturer had some form of software based solution running on a touchscreen, while Telos Alliance’s Axia had one that mixed tactile and virtual. Wheatstone’s AudioArts came closer to RODE with a full analog console retailing for just over $2000.
Moving away from the show floor, panels focused on radio as well seemed better attended this year with many at standing room only. Unfortunately, two of the most important were not. Hofstra University’s Andy Gladding emceed a session on how he created an young engineering pipeline to commercial broadcasters by just being accessible to his students. At the Public Radio Engineering Conference that preceded NAB, Inrush’s Rob Bertrand outlined the future of collaboration between public stations needed by discussing how by outsourcing back-office services such as engineering or traffic to third parties they can get better services. Bertrand explained that they would get larger teams available to them for less money and preserve many jobs through the staffers joining the third parties.
In general though, the vibe at the show was one of uncertainty. From the questions about Trump’s tariffs that many said were already affecting some important revenue channels such as local automotive advertising to the FCC’s “Delete Delete Delete” proceeding that could alter nearly every facet of the broadcasting industry as we know it, nobody knew what tomorrow would bring let alone where we’d be a year from now. And that is a conundrum that will take some time to figure out.
