The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show in Las Vegas is winding down, and this year a lot of the talk was around cord cutting (or OTT as they call it).
So let’s take a look at the five biggest cord cutting stories from NAB.
#1 Over-the-Air TV 3.0
The new 3.0 standard for over-the-air TV is likely still a few years away from being widely available, but at NAB it had a big presence.
The big thing that was pushed at the show was better signal penetration meaning the same broadcast towers can reach more homes. 3.0 will also bring new features that make TV more interactive.
#2 Antennas
This year at the NAB show we saw several new antennas. Mohu was present showing off its AirWave antenna that should be available in the next few months. We even saw an antenna that was built into a phone case. Keep an eye on the market for a flood of new antennas at your local big box store.
#3 Streaming
Almost every booth had something about streaming—from ways for broadcasters to stream content easier and cheaper to ways to make the quality better. Although nothing new was seen for streaming, the big focus was on the idea that services need to offer a streaming option for cord cutters.
#4 À la carte TV
This one was a bit of a head scratcher. No one really had plans for à la carte TV, but everyone wanted to talk about it. Sling TV even rebranded itself as à la carte TV without making any changes but with the promise of something big to come.
À la carte TV is the dream of many cord cutters, and it seems that broadcast TV executives have heard your cries.
#5 Content Discovery
TV is moving away from channels to focus on shows, and at NAB everyone had an idea about how they can help viewers find shows. With a growing list of services and shows, content discovery seems to be a market a lot of big names want to get into.
So those are my top five takeaways from the NAB show. Although nothing earth shattering happened, it was interesting to see the direction many broadcasters want to move into.
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