But NAB 2025 was not business as usual. As if it wasn’t enough for the winds of change that continuously blow over these industries, the five days of conferences and trade show have coincided with one of the largest market turmoils ever registered - internally in the US, and globally - due to the Trump administration’s tariffs announcements. In most conversations I’ve had with exhibitors, there was always this big overarching question about what it could all mean for global trade - and let there be no question, no audio and video equipment manufacturing can be self-sustaining within any geographical border, not even in China. And clearly not within the United States.
The FCC seems to be particularly interested in bringing down regulatory measures impacting ownership rules, content policies, and licensing requirements, which naturally— as with everything that involves traditional media— has severe political implications. This is intended to loosen ownership caps on radio and television broadcasters, allowing interest groups and billionaires to effectively take over US mass media by controlling existing licenses. Although the review process is still expected to take several months, the tension around ownership rules is hanging in the air like a menacing storm approaching.
The National Association of Broadcasters is promoted as “the premier advocacy association for America’s broadcasters.” In the organization’s mission, it is stated that “NAB advances radio and television interests in legislative, regulatory, and public affairs. Through advocacy, education, and innovation, NAB enables broadcasters to best serve their communities, strengthen their businesses, and seize new opportunities in the digital age.” It will be a significant challenge for the organization to navigate the conflicting interests of the current administration. In most of the 550 conference sessions, where more than 1,000 industry executives intervened, the political situation was mostly debated backstage.
Fortunately, the weather in Las Vegas during NAB was simply beautiful, serving to compensate for the strange logistics of this year’s show, with the Las Vegas Convention Center still undergoing major renovations. This year, the Central Hall was closed, as were all main access areas, forcing the show to relocate all the traditional production technology companies, including Sony, Ikegami, Canon, and others, to the newly remodeled North Hall. And with most of the broadcast-oriented, plus cloud and streaming media distribution activities located in the modern West Hall, while the world of automation, live production, graphics, and post-production was located at the South Hall lower level, the intense foot traffic between halls was the hallmark of this year’s trade show. Forcing visitors to walk in open air (and some construction dust) to South Hall could have been a major problem if it weren’t for the desert weather, mild temperatures, and beautiful blue skies.
Expecting more than 60,000 registered attendees, the annual NAB Show attracted approximately 55,000 visitors from 160 countries. Interestingly, one out of four attendees at NAB were traveling from outside the US (NAB is an influential event particularly for South America), and 53% of participants were registering for the first time, reflecting the fast-changing landscape on a global scale.
Even with decreasing numbers, the NAB Show remains the world’s largest gathering of media, technology, and entertainment professionals, beating the rival European (and more international) IBC show in Amsterdam by more than 20,000 attendees. Still, the NAB Show attendance is far from its glory days with well over 100,000 attendees from 10 years ago, and its current numbers of exhibitors (approximately 1,100) are below the more than 1,350 exhibitors present at IBC.
Karen Chupka, EVP of Global Connections and Events, NAB summarized the changing landscape in her pre-show statement: “This show has been successfully reimagined as a home for content creators of all types – from social media to television to the big screen – and it delivers on that promise by showcasing cutting-edge innovation that will further evolve the art of storytelling across all mediums.”
Specifically, there are many new European companies in transmission, streaming, and production software, and many more from China in the production tools sectors: camera support and lighting, but increasingly also in cameras and lenses, not to mention new categories in stabilization systems and drones. I remember well seeing GoPro threatening to take over Sony’s dominance in the camera market 15 years ago. GoPro is not even an exhibitor at NAB anymore, and in its place, we can find DJI (OSMO) and other Chinese companies, such as Insta360, that are fast developing a portfolio of products that covers all production needs, from web streaming and radical sports all the way to motion picture production. And increasingly leading in audio and video field-production technologies, those numerous companies from China are starting to dominate the wireless microphone space - originally with 2.4GHz ISM systems, but this year also starting to show digital RF products.
Emerging technologies and startups were predominantly from Europe and South Korea, even though many active in the emerging AI applications were also from the US. But I couldn’t help noticing that in the high-demand areas of indexing, translation, transcription, subtitles, dubbing, and many areas of metadata managing, where artificial intelligence has been predominant for a few years, most of the technology providers that I’ve seen emerging had less of a presence, and those technologies were now displayed as integrated features from the larger dominant vendors.
Audio post, as an example, was almost absent from the show because of that. The large players are so dominant for media companies that even familiar names from the audio industry that we all know dominate in studios and DAWs are either absent from the show or are almost hidden in the maze of companies. What is very visible here is the progress in media management and storage, collaboration solutions, and archives, where this year the equations were simpler than ever. Thunderbolt 5 is now the dominant technology embraced in media production and distribution at the local level, with ST 2110 IP-networks and cloud infrastructure connecting the wide area and supporting remote production.
These trends are visible even among the Hollywood-style production equipment vendors, where economies of scale are increasingly imposing wide collaborative solutions and networks. And in that respect, as the “content creator” economy is evolving and getting increasingly sophisticated, there is a clear convergence in methods and tools being adopted. And that is why Blackmagic is now supplying 12K cameras (which it started doing just a few years ago) to major movie studios, and RED is increasingly popular among YouTubers. DJI, Insta360, and many new emerging manufacturers from China are now offering more advanced and sophisticated production tools that very soon will become prevalent even in areas such as sports broadcasting - the last resort for the traditional Japanese “TV camera” manufacturers. Image quality is no longer a differentiator, while sophisticated camera metadata and live streaming capabilities are becoming mandatory in modern production.
Not surprisingly, as I visited the audio companies exhibiting at NAB, predominantly in areas such as microphones, wireless microphones, and intercom, it was visible that the new products and solutions being highlighted were those appealing to that new generation of creators and respective production styles. Surprisingly, there was hardly any speaker monitor companies exhibiting. It seems that all the leading brands have learned the trick of simply spreading their products in the largest number of exhibits, where naturally everyone - from radio equipment manufacturers to postproduction systems - requires monitors for their demonstrations.
The change to the North Hall this year caused many traditional audio exhibitors to move locations. And that is probably why there wasn’t a predominant “audio zone” at NAB - as there still is at IBC - with only companies specializing in audio solutions for media production attending the show, and in that respect reporting very good results. Being “the ultimate marketplace for next-generation technology inspiring superior audio and video experiences,” as the NAB Show is promoted, apparently the event is an increasingly great opportunity for those who understand the environment.
During every NAB Show, the organization unveils the winners of its distinguished 2025 Product of the Year and newly established Project of the Year Awards, which are announced during a special ceremony at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Winners were selected by a panel of industry experts and peers, and not surprisingly, this year’s Product of the Year Award Winners included integration of new AI tools and rewarded new companies that meet the emerging production formats.
In audio products, one of the winners was the iZotope RX 11 Audio Editor, the Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 20 software, and the Saramonic Ultra 2-channel wireless microphone system with timecode and AI-based voice enhancement and noise reduction built-in. In other categories, I thought it was amusing to see an award given to IDX Systems (a respectable camera battery company) with its Portable USB-C PD Charger, which is a pretty standard 100W USB Power Delivery charger with a built-in wall plug. An example of consumer technology convergence that sometimes also works under the radar. aX
This article was originally published in The Audio Voice newsletter, (#510), April 10, 2025.
