This week, NAB held its first Broadcast Innovations event at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., highlighting the many ways local radio and TV stations are investing in and supporting cutting-edge technologies to better serve their communities. Jim Handly, anchor of local NBC affiliate WRC-TV, hosted the event before a crowd of congressional and regulatory staff and other public policy officials.

The event showcased stunning Ultra HD Olympics video from NBC; a live drone demonstration and an immersive Virtual Reality demo. Attendees also learned more about apps – such as NewsOn and NextRadio – that are enabling local stations to deliver their content to listeners and viewers on mobile devices.

NAB President and CEO Gordon H. Smith highlighted Next Generation TV's benefits to viewers, noting that it's the world's first broadcast standard built on an internet protocol backbone, offering the advantages of broadcast and broadband. NBCU’s Senior Vice President of Advanced Technology Standards and Policy Glenn Reitmeier pointed out that the new standard is needed in order to enable broadcasters to deliver Ultra HD content like they produced at the Olympics in Rio. Smith noted the importance of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) swift action to approve voluntary use of the new ATSC 3.0 standard before the end of 2016. The hope that the FCC would move quickly on Next Gen TV was noted by several event participants.