LAS VEGAS ? A fake Frenchman in a beret attempted to draw my portrait. Television crews from Argentina, Japan and Germany tried to interview me and anyone else who stood still. A guy at Toshiba or Hitachi or something let me aim a fancy HDTV camera at a pile of oranges and houseplants, proving the device could handle color pictures. The giant Thomson Multimedia booth was packed so tightly with the company?s blue-shirted sales troops that I couldn?t get a good look at the raven-haired babe in the tight police costume and still can?t say what purpose she filled.

Today is official opening day at NAB2001. Important remarks were made by Eddie Fritts, president and CEO of the broadcast-industry lobbying group, and Jack Valenti, who runs a motion-picture trade group ? I know these things because copies of their speeches were provided in the pressroom. It is important when covering such things to act like you actually sat through the speech.

According to these texts, Valenti referenced William Goldman, H.L. Mencken, Lyndon Johnson, an elf of some kind, druids, Italian immigrants, the First Amendment, the Internet, David Horowitz, the Greek invasion of Melos, and God.

Fritts mentioned supernovas, the Russian national anthem, E-toys, Tennessee Williams, and John McCain. Fritts doesn?t like McCain. Dubya doesn?t like McCain. All the corporations and networks benefiting from the wholesale giveaway of this country?s broadcast spectrum don?t like McCain. That?s because McCain is slowly making progress on campaign-finance reform and has introduced a bill that might resurrect legal, low-power broadcasting in America.

'Here we go again,' Fritts said.

Fritts? mantra is this: ?We provide a free, local service to the community.? And his industry makes billions by selling advertising on the airwaves God provided to NAB members only.

The chairman ended his speech (I saw this part) by glossing over the mass defection from the lobbying group by NBC, CBS, etc. ?Ladies and gentlemen, everything is still in place to continue our record of success. We never like to lose a member, large or small, but we are neither diminished nor demoralized.?

Somebody else can figure out if they?re demoralized, but losing all but one network is about as diminished as it gets.

A World of Complicated Devices

Somewhere in the big hall were a couple of massive metal things. I saw a guy with a media tag looking at the sculptures with knowing interest.

?What the hell are they?? I asked.

?Bat antennae,? he said.

I nodded as if that meant something, and walked off. There is just no end to the gadgets involved in television production. I briefly served as an intern at the old NBC station in San Diego, some 18 years ago, and I could even get by on those big control-room boards with the different camera buttons and wipes and sweeps and whatever. But this new stuff ? what?s it for?

There are dozens of obscure video/broadcast/technology trade journals to explain it all, with names like ?HGRW Compression Quarterly? and ?Porta-Scam Inline Editing World.? These things must employ thousands of our fellow journalists, and that?s always good. I flipped through a few titles and felt lightheaded.

The real business of this conference, it seems, is the selling of teevee-studio gadgets. I?m pretty certain the guy shopping for his new EYEWITNESS NEWS van could give a damn about Jack Valenti?s remarks. You should see these geeks climbing over these piles of equipment, caressing weird rack-mount gizmos, gazing lovingly into videocam lenses.