NATPE Moves To Repair Station Relations

The short shrift given broadcast TV at last January’s NATPE conference in Miami was a “miss,” NATPE COO and Managing Director J.P. Bommel admitted today.

But as Bommel pointed out, the agenda for NATPE 2016 was not constructed on his watch. He was transitioning to his current job at the time, but took over officially just last March — replacing Rod Perth, who held the title of NATPE president-CEO.

Bommel said his first phone call after assuming his new position was to Emerson Coleman, a member of the NATPE board’s executive committee and VP of programming for Hearst Television.

The result of this conversation, and others Bommel has had since then with station group programmers, is the “Station Group Summit” track of sessions scheduled for NATPE 2017 next month. The agenda represents a much-beefed up effort on the part of NATPE to raise the profile of broadcasters at the annual programming conference.

“This was an idea that Jack Abernethy [CEO of Fox Television Stations], Emerson Coleman and myself had after Miami [last January, when Bommel was not yet in charge],” he said yesterday in a telephone news conference that was convened to promote the upcoming NATPE conference, scheduled for Jan. 16-19 at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach.

“My first call was to Emerson and I said, ‘Look, what are we doing about this?’ And we talked about [that],” Bommel said. “Look, I will admit it, it was a miss last year. That’s why we’re doing it this year.”

Last winter’s NATPE agenda contained exactly one session devoted to a discussion about the programming needs of local broadcasters. And that session was a mere 30 minutes in length. Station group programming executives who were there left the conference feeling very dissatisfied — with some wondering if they would bother returning in 2017.

Indeed, Fox’s Abernethy was a panelist on the sole broadcasting session, and at its conclusion, he said sarcastically, “I want to thank Rod Perth for having one 30-minute session on broadcasting in the whole conference.”

NATPE’s new chief says he has taken the broadcasters’ dissatisfaction to heart. “NATPE was built on the station groups and even as content platforms have evolved, they will be an important part of the conversation in Miami,” Bommel says. “I have always believed that local is the new global. We have so many great initiatives. Local stations are a lot more than just the weather and traffic. They come up with amazing ideas in programming, so we’re thrilled to have that discussion in Miami.”

NATPE’s new Station Group Summit “track” consists of six sessions devoted to broadcast TV – all longer than 30 minutes each. While some moderators and participants are still being booked, Bommel said all six will “definitely” happen at NATPE next month. 

Bommel also announced that Today show and Access Hollywood personality Natalie Morales will host NATPE’s annual Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Awards presentation on the conference’s final evening. As previously reported, this year’s award winners are actress Eva Longoria; Josh Sapan, president-CEO of AMC Networks; Susanne Daniels, global head of original content for YouTube; Dana Walden and Gary Newman, co-chairmen of Fox Television Group; and Randy Falco, president-CEO of Univision.