MUMBAI: The National Association of Television Programme Executives’ (Natpe) annual conference takes place in Las Vegas from 15-18 January 2006.

Addressing the changes in the television industry and the opportunities those changes are creating inspired Natpe president and CEO Rick Feldman to adopt the Evolve and Prosper tagline as the edict for the conference and exhibition.

Explaining the evolve portion of the tagline, Feldman says: “For a very long time, Natpe was the domestic syndication market and conference. Over the past few years, however, the world has really changed, becoming much more global and with the advent of all of the digital technologies, Natpe has become much more of a global digital content distribution market and conference.

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“We have added Natpe Mobile ++ and we have a full three-day agenda for the conference portion of the Natpe event that creates a snapshot of the world of television as it is going to appear the second week in January 2007.”

With regard to how Natpe helps its members and participants prosper, Feldman says, “We create the most effective and efficient market and conference environment from which people can do business. One of the things that we can’t control is the ebb and flow of the business. But what we can control is, from the moment people come to Natpe until they leave that everything that could be done has been done to make doing business and meeting people and learning about what is going on in our world as effortless as possible.”

Clarifying Natpe’s role and service to the industry by saying that the organissation is not a predictor or maker of business, but rather a reflector of the business, Feldman says, “If you dropped someone from Mars at Natpe for a four-day visit, I would hope that we would serve as the newspaper of record in terms of what’s happening in our world.

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“Many other conferences and markets both in this country and around the world are specific to a certain genre or a specific part of the business. One of the great things about Natpe, and I’ve attended a lot of them over the past three decades, including the last four as president of the organisation, is that now more than ever before, you’re going to find people from every single sector of the television business. What we’ve really tried to do is stay a half a step behind where the business is going and reflect that so that those who normally aren’t involved in a certain discourse can be when they go to NATPE. They’ll see those parts of the business that affect the way they do business, but may not affect them on a day-to-day basis.”

Natpe 2007 kicks off with an address by Wired magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson He wrote the book The Long Tail. His speech will be followed by a panel discussion centering on his Long Tail theory about markets that lie outside the reach of the physical retailer. Panelists will include ICM vice chairman Robert Broder; Sci Fi Channel and USA Networks president Bonnie Hammer and Fox Interactive Media president Ross Levinsohn.

Among Natpe’s offerings are its intimate discussion opportunities with today’s industry leaders. Coffee With? and Chat With? sessions are scheduled throughout the conference and provide attendees with insight as well as access.

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