NAB is a great event. Shed loads of people predicting the ‘next-big-thing’ and taking their stand on tomorrows new format and start-up sensation. If there’s one thing to emerge from this Las Vegas hypefest is the challenge Internet broadcasting is making to traditional distribution mediums.

The TV broadcasters are either sitting on some pretty serious new killer apps that will get their struggling interactive TV services to “work the web” or they don’t  have a clue what to do and bluffing us all. Which ever way you look at it, the fact that the recent    Yahoo/broadcast.com deal now values the new company at US$5 billion *more* than CBS is cause for a quite interesting new debate.

We’ve been following this PC/TV convergence “thang” for sometime now, we’ve even been asked to speak about it, but the events over the last week at NAB show the true colours of the Big Broadcasting Boys [BBB]. At one end you have William Kennard, chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission chanting the cable cause:

“With their direct connection to nearly every home in America, networks are sitting on an asset that Internet start-ups can’t come close to matching. Broadcasters have that big pipe that everybody needs today. Broadcast.com, like many of today’s Internet companies, took a risk on a future that is not yet here. They’ll experiment with IP Multicasting, better compression techniques, different approaches to caching, or with whole new distribution pipes like satellite,” he said. “But in the end, what they’re really trying to do is come up with a good point-to-

multipoint model, and that’s just another word for  broadcasting.”

Whilst at the other end, Real raider Rob Glasier rocks  the boat: “The future of Net broadcasting, is the future of broadcasting.” With Anthony Bay, general manager of Microsoft’s streaming media division taking the lead, “A few years ago,  newspapers were also debating whether

or not to have a presence on the Web. The question is not if, but when you’ll do it. The market is here, the technology is here. If you wait a couple of years to get involved, it will really be challenging.”

Whatever happens, the battle has just begun and we’re here to cover every blow.