It didn't take long for the murmuring from New Orleans to reach Los Angeles. Something unusual was going on at this year's National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) conference. Going into the event predictions were that while no one knew what to expect, it wouldn't be incredibly eventful or exciting; a sort of status quo for an industry in limbo. However, as soon as the conference began Monday, January 24 an excited whisper grew to a roar by the close on Thursday, January 27, 2000. The "dot coms" were on the floor in force and a decidedly different tone was sparking the conference. People were discussing the current no man's land of convergence, grappling with its meaning and coming to some exciting results.

Bruce Johansen, CEO and president of NATPE. Courtesy of NATPE.

I asked Bruce Johansen, CEO and president of NATPE, about this year's conference and what it means

Heather Kenyon: This year's NATPE seemed like a watershed year with a lot of changes on the floor, namely the introduction of so many dot coms. Why do you think this is? This is obviously a sign that the television industry is changing.

Bruce Johansen: There are several reasons why there was a huge presence of dot coms on the floor. One is because we made an aggressive effort to market to the dot coms and new and interactive media companies. It is clearly of interest to our members, our core members, our traditional members, to learn more about this aspect of the industry. So looking at it from NATPE's traditional perspective it made sense for us to do whatever we could to bring these people into the fold. It makes our members better and more informed. We brought in Nina Steiner, who was our director of media sales, whose only job was to market toward those new companies. We had about 15 companies exhibiting at the previous year's conference. This year we had 140.

HK: That's amazing.

BJ: Absolutely amazing. It was incredible. I never expected to have that many companies there. Plus they were all over the board. There were b to b's, b to c's, there were start ups, there were dot coms, there were infrastructure companies. Now they came for several reasons. They came because they on the other side of the fence wanted to learn more about how they could integrate with the traditional broadcasters, networks and cable networks. They also came because they know we attract a huge number of advertising executives, and for the most part these dot coms are advertiser supported and they need to reach that contingent. NATPE is the most efficient way to reach the advertising community. It is even more efficient than the advertisers' own conferences. We had approximately 800 advertising executives at our conference in '99, and we had over 1000 two weeks ago, so that was a big attraction as well. Thirdly, we are the conference of record for the creative community here in Hollywood. A lot of the dot coms and new and interactive media companies have great technical prowess, but they need content. They need that expertise from Hollywood. So those are the three main attractions from their side and why they found this to be an invigorating conference for them. For the most part, I heard very positive reports that they accomplished what they set out to do and even more.

HK: How do you think they are going to influence the television world?

BJ: Well, I think it is a two way street. Both are going to influence each other and both are sort of cagily assessing each others' possible contributions to business ventures involving both parties. The broadcasters need to redefine their business and their role in their communities. They have lost exclusivity, because a lot of the network exclusivity they used to have is now diffused through cable penetration and what have you. Therefore, they are looking to build their Internet presence. They are also looking down the line at digital television that will probably give them four or five additional channels to program in their community. They are looking for ways of developing e-commerce and/or data transmission in those other frequencies they are going to have; they are looking for some of these new and interactive media companies to help come up with business opportunities that will fill those channels. It is a need on both sides, so to that extent they are influencing each other in a business vision.