“Let’s do more in 2024!” is the mantra I set for the new year back on January 1.
With February now underway, it seems like a great time to do an early check on our progress.
The Consumer Electronics Show, better known as CES, was basically the “starting gun” of the new work year. The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) reports that 135,000+ people attended this year, up from 115,000 last year. This is solid double-digit growth and puts the pandemic firmly in the rearview mirror.
The show was way too big to recap in a meaningful way, so I’ll offer a couple of big things I noticed while there and relate them to our NAB Show coming up in April.
First, NEXTGEN TV continues to build momentum. Overall sales of NEXTGEN TV sets surpassed 10 million units in December of 2023.
TCL joined the party at CES becoming the latest consumer electronics company to offer NEXTGEN TVs. They launched five big and beautiful models.
CTA published an updated sales forecast for NEXTGEN TV that shows substantial growth over the next five years, estimating over 120 million NEXTGEN TV sets sold by 2028.
The future of TV panel I moderated featured speakers from CBS, Hisense and Scripps who all spoke about the new features and improvements that NEXTGEN TV provides, how it “future proofs” our industry and businesses and the need to continue to educate consumers.
On February 5, Chicago launched as the latest ATSC 3.0 market. This means every top 10 market and 19 of the top 20 markets are now live with ATSC 3.0 transmissions, and ATSC 3.0 signals are on the air in markets that reach over 75% of U.S. television households.
As we look forward to NAB Show, you can expect even more good news and developments as it relates to ATSC 3.0 globally and NEXTGEN TV here in the United States. New markets will continue to launch and additional transmitters in existing markets will enable broadcasters to begin to show off some of the advanced capabilities of the standard, like HDR for better pictures, broadcast IP channels for hyper-local content, apps for enhanced viewer engagement and datacasting for myriad innovative applications. There are also exciting things happening in Brazil, India, the Caribbean and beyond.
The second big takeaway: artificial intelligence (AI) was everywhere at CES. I believe it was somehow included in every booth, presentation and cab line discussion.
Based on my experience, I think the folks at Gartner may have gotten it wrong this past August when they declared that generative AI was at the peak of inflated expectations. The hype cycle definitely expanded at CES and the peak got a little pointier.
In that vein, I thoroughly enjoyed participating in the Axios Future Disruptors event at the Sphere where the conversation was virtually all about AI. The discussion was lively and diverse with others from Adobe, Microsoft, Intel, TikTok, the Department of Energy, the NTIA and a variety of startups all offering their take on what they saw as exciting, scary, attainable or fantasy.
While I spend a good bit of time thinking about AI in the context of copyright, intellectual property, deepfakes and the impact on democracy, it was fun to hear about the applications for AI in everything from medical devices to network planning.
AI is poised to be a driving force at NAB Show. We have 10 presentations and three panels on AI as part of our Broadcast Engineering & Information Technology (BEIT) Conference, and we’ll feature numerous papers on AI in our Proceedings.
Attendees of the Post|Production World Conference can get hands-on training and earn seven different professional certifications at NAB Show. I’m sure the show floor will feature a cornucopia of AI and innovation.
So, CES served as the starting gun and provided a fast start to the new year. It was a great beginning and I give kudos to the team at CTA. NAB Show will be a flywheel accelerant with real and meaningful educational opportunities from some of the brightest minds in media, entertainment and technology. I hope to see you there and I know it will help you do more in 2024!