NorthEast Radio Watch 4/14 and 4/21/2025: Post-NAB Wrapup

In this week’s issue… After NAB, hope and confusion – WZLX, WBEB relaunch morning shows – WJTO, WLAM stay alive for now – MBC takes over Bell stations – Remembering Mimi Griswold, Herb Squire

By SCOTT FYBUSH

Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada

*We’re back from yet another NAB Show (our 23rd consecutive April in Las Vegas, if anyone’s counting), and while we’re still catching up on sleep and our usual work back home, it’s time to try to summarize one of the more unusual NABs in recent memory.

This year’s show took place against the backdrop of potentially massive regulatory upheaval, as the FCC works through hundreds of comments in its “Delete, Delete, Delete” proceeding to revisit basically all of its rules. It opened during the stock market’s biggest freefall in years, driven in turn by the instability of the new on-again, off-again tariffs that were challenging equipment manufacturers to figure out what their pricing structures will look like based on supply chains that are heavily dependent on Asian imports of both finished gear and parts.

The crowds were definitely lighter this year, too – a reported attendance by NAB of just 55,000, barely half of the pre-pandemic peaks, with some would-be international attendees deciding to cancel at the last minute because of all the new uncertainties of travel into and out of the US.

And yet many vendors and attendees left Las Vegas in a surprisingly upbeat mood, because even if the crowds were smaller, those who attended seemed to be very serious about their projects and shopping lists. If there weren’t as many shiny new bits of gear on the floor this year, one colleague summed it up with some positivity: “The people who make good stuff, are making it all work better.”

*So what were some of the highlights of that better-working gear? The ongoing trend to virtualization continues unabated. 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.

Whether audio or video, if you’re willing to trade off a little reliability and endurance for a very low price tag, the options to create your content at low cost continue to grow. RODE, which set a new price point with its $700 RODEcaster Pro, has clearly driven competitors to offer less expensive products with big feature sets, which is why Wheatstone’s AudioArts division, for instance, was showing a full-featured analog console for barely over $2000 this year. (At the end of the show, one broadcaster literally plopped down some casino-fresh cash to take an example home.)

The same was true for what we saw on the video side, as companies like Blackmagicdesign continue to create low-cost digital switchers that can do most of what once required hundreds of thousands of dollars in control room gear.

Keep an ear on our Top of the Tower Podcast over the weekend, because we’ll be bringing you some interviews that take this trend to the next level. Students at schools such as Long Island’s Hofstra University are, after all, growing up already doing sophisticated video and audio production on those inexpensive units or just on their phones. There was a robust student turnout this year, and you’ll want to hear from Hofstra’s Andy Gladding and others about how they’re encouraging the next generation of broadcasters to join our industry (and why it’s still a good idea!)

There were more familiar faces on the floor than we can even begin to name, but here’s a particular shout-out to a pair of NERW-land authors who were signing books at the NAB bookstore in the North Hall hallway. (The usual spot near Central Hall is out of commission while the Las Vegas Convention Center continues its renovation with a refurbishment there.)

Valerie Geller is out with a new third edition of her “Beyond Powerful Radio,” the must-read guide to making radio and audio content engaging, and we got to see Amanda Cupido, the former program director of Corus’ AM 640 (CFIQ) in Toronto, who’s now fully focused on podcasting with her new book, “Let’s Talk Podcasting.”

(Will you be hearing more from both of them when we head to Toronto in May for Radiodays North America? You sure will…)