I didn’t have to see “The Hangover.” I lived it.
For 20 years, I attended NATPE, officially the TV industry’s biggest program sales convention. In reality, it’s what occurred when outlandish sales goals, corporate credit cards, massive levels of testosterone, mountains of surgically enhanced breasts and the hearty welcome of New Orleans and Las Vegas spontaneously combusted.
NATPE just ended in Vegas -- although it was a shadow of its former self. It was Woodstock 2009 vs 1969. Attendance was down, companies’ presence was subdued. Booths once the size of two-bedroom condos shrunk while some syndicators vacated the convention floor for hotel suites.
It’s certainly the economy, which has cut budgets, attendee lists and station buyers’ pocketbooks. It’s also because the program sales business has, for all intents and purposes, vanished.
Sure, a few shows still roll out each year. But the number of syndicators has dropped from dozens to a handful and the survivors are mainly network-owned, mandated to develop for their own stations’ needs. Show concepts receiving lukewarm reception are killed off earlier in the season and deals now need to be done long before the convention.
That’s not exactly true. For years, many deals were closed pre-NATPE and held back to reveal during the show. No one really believed the spontaneity -- the media must’ve wondered why last-minute announcements included so much detail -- but the posturing was part of the showmanship.
The real NATPE wasn’t about the hype or the deal, but the community. It’s where next generations got first-hand training in the industry’s think-on-your-feet, deliver-the-impossible philosophy. NATPE taught me lifelong skills and knowledge. Tomorrow, I could probably step in to lead the First Army into battle without breaking a sweat. My ability to toss out crashers is an art form.
And I know to always keep a wad of $20s in my wallet in case the sales staff feels like lap dances.
Careers were made and lost at NATPE. Salespeople who didn’t meet targets were job-hunting by March. One December, a TV company’s brand new head of PR approached me with a job opportunity; eight weeks later, her boss offered it because she was gone –fired over a less than stellar performance during those three days.
It was a place to say goodbye. One NATPE, a beloved sales executive who’d been MIA for months due to a virulent cancer showed up unexpectedly and worked the entire floor. He was clearly ill but still had that salesman’s bravado; to each friend, he’d bellow “Things are great!” as if he was describing show renewals. We all kept up the façade but those hugs were tighter than usual, held a little longer and we’d turn our heads away, just for a moment. He was gone within the year.
Most of all, NATPE isn’t NATPE because the lawyers and HR folks woke up. It’s become the new Britney Spears: same look but subdued, politically correct and wearing a seat belt.
Gone are the Original Butt Sketch® artists. The female mud wrestling. The hot and cold running bartenders. NATPE offered cocktails from one end of the floor to the other, with an inverse proportion between the people who did the most drinking and their relevance there. For
