Dot Coms at NATPE: Cable Deja vu All Over Again.

I came, I saw, I didn't buy." This is how the U.K.'s ITV chief program buyer Jeremy Boulton described the recently concluded NATPE 2000 in New Orleans. This characterization was not only peculiar to international buyers, but also to the domestic U.S. market, which is the foundation of NATPE. For the record, there were fewer U.S. TV station representatives, station group executives and independent broadcasters than ever before. This is caused by the changing nature of the TV business, which everyone knows about. But what most of NATPE's participants didn't know is what all the 150-plus dot-com companies in attendance were doing.

Were they buying programs (called content)? Were they hawking their services? Were they using NATPE as a promotion vehicle? And, if they were buying content, who was selling to them? Especially when many distributors admitted they weren't certain what a dot-com sale would entail. "We're not even sure what to put into contracts with regard to digital," stated Twentieth Television's Rick Jacobson.

In any case, the dot-com companies infused some unexpected excitement into the convention, but not enough to alleviate the sense of discomfort caused by the sight of many scarcely trafficked hallways.

Naturally, business was being conducted, especially by the large Latin American contingent. Various industry issues that surfaced on the NATPE floor also created a buzz, such as the announcement of the calendar dates for the upcoming L.A. Screenings.

The well-produced and well-attended seminars dealt with an array of topics, ranging from policy to on-air promos. However, the lion's share of seminar subjects focused on digital television and the Internet. In effect, the hype over the dot-com business seemed reminiscent of the hoopla brought by cable in the late '70s, early '80s on the NATPE floor. Then, as now, dire predictions for the broadcast business were prophesied by panelists and NATPE attendees alike.

Although the NATPE organization is quickly adjusting to the big picture, it seems to be losing some of its savoirfaire. In addition not producing a useful market guide but preferring instead to dilute its resources on the production of a less-needed daily (there are already five dailies, including Video Age), the organizers have now for the first time enforced a little-known regulation preventing exhibitors from walking the floor with promotional material.

In effect, according to some very fine print buried deep in the voluminous NATPE regulation book sent to all exhibitors, one risks expulsion by the security guards if caught walking the aisles even with a T-shirt bearing a company logo. The purpose of this enforcement, according to a NATPE representative, is to stimulate more sponsorships which NATPE can sell for a fee. "All the exhibitor activities have to be confined within the exhibitor's rented space," was how NATPE's Nick Orfanopoulos described the little-known rule. This prompted some participants to question if NATPE would be more in tune with Greed NATPE, a play on words most often affiliated with Greed-Midem's (Reed-Midem) trade shows in Cannes, France (MIP-TV and MIPCOM). Speculation as to the reasoning behind the sudden enforcement of this obscure rule also points to the changing nature of the markets addressing of potential loss of revenues.

Unfortunately, the result of such rule enforcement further reduced the traffic in the aisles, turning the floor into a somber place more closely resembling a lawyer's convention than the show business bazaar traditionally expected at NATPE. Another practice accentuated this year at NATPE was the cordoning off of exhibitor space (by some exhibitors) excluding participants who were just browsing. This not only reduced foot traffic, but also defeated the underlying purpose of the market in the view of some participants.

A constant growth area for NATPE has been in the number of participants and exhibitors hailing from outside the U.S. even though, as The New York Times quoted Time Warner's CEO Gerald Levin, "American television does not sell well outside the United States anymore." This means that much of today's television business is being conducted on American soil among non-U.S. companies.

On the content side, NATPE programmers emerged with six court show pilots to crowd the judicial fare currently on the air. Game shows jumped on the Millionaire bandwagon with at least eight pilots introduced at New Orleans. This of course is seen as another downturn for the production community since, in the words of CBS' Leslie Moonves (to The New York Times), "Every game show in primetime costs the industry 100 jobs."

Finally, on the issue of the upcoming L.A. Screenings, the Video Age Daily at NATPE reported that, according to some Latin American distributors, the spring market is slated for May 22. This, however, might represent a problem for most participants since the L.A. hotels are reportedly fully booked right up until May 24 on account of a citywide convention for the Association of Microbiologists.