Broadcast Minds Brilliance

The guys at NewTek hosted a panel discussion called Broadcast Minds to promote their TriCaster line here at NAB. Among the panelists were TWiT founder Leo Leporte and Adam Carolla, and while talking about TriCaster's impact on changing media from broadcast to streaming, they each had some golden moments.

The idea that people from the "three letter networks" as one crowd member put it had a lot of sway over the creative process, Corolla scored the first gem when he riffed off that to say:

"The death of creativity is 15 people weighing in."

Leporte stressed that the key to good shows and programing - like his TWiT network of about 40 hours a week - is "speaking the idiom of your audience.". His point is that the audiences may be smaller, but they are extremely accurately counted, more engaged and in turn more receptive to advertising messages, The problem becomes getting old school Mad Men to do more than "experimental buys", in part, because they don't necessarily like making those placements. First, they don't necessarily understand the media; second, since their pay is percentage of the placement - and social media buys are cheap - they are not going to net as much off the percentage.

For all the quick one-liners - including some shots at the expense of St, John's University's mascot and fencing program - Carolla had some of fhe most serious thoughts. In discussing late night TV, he pointed out the sped up, over polished, rapid fire delivery. "You don't get to know anyone," in that time Carolla said, and he was praising the fact that the "vanguard of technology is helping slow it down." Shows like his (and I think immediately of Kevin Pollack Chat Show), allow for longer form interviews.

"New technology to get back to the oldest form of communication - telling a sorry," Carolla said. "The tech is new, the theorem is old - how many people can you gather around to hear you."

In the question and answer, one audience member from Australia spoke of how chat was an impotent part of the equation and the VP for tech with the NBA chimed in on how important they thought it was. Twitter traffic and good old CoverItLive came up in this, and it set the stage for Leporte's closer:

"We are no longer willing to be just viewers of the performance, we want to be part of the play."