NAB GETS SOME SOUND AND FURY FROM ROBBINS

“It was the most bizarre and interesting thing to happen at the NAB since Reagan,” said a government official who has attended many of the conventions over the years.

The “it,” of course, was actor Tim Robbins startling speech. It was “bizarre and interesting,” not so much for its content as for its context—the opening session of the NAB convention—a time usually devoted to platitudes about how swell radio and TV are and how lucky America is to have them.

For you neophytes, the “Reagan” reference was to the then ex-president’s NAB speech in the mid-1990s when some nut job slowly walked on to the stage, picked up a large crystal eagle Reagan had just been awarded and smashed it on the stage as a stunned audience and Secret Service looked on.

But back to Robbins.

I missed the speech, assuming that the opening session would be news free zone as it mostly has been in my quarter century of covering NABs.

But I immediately heard about it, first via e-mails in the press room and then from people streaming out of the Hilton and into the convention center. Oddly, I received my first full report from Bruce Collins, VP and general counsel of C-SPAN, an acquaintance from my cable days. He called the speech a “media lashing.”

Fortunately for me and others not at the opening session, B&C taped the speech and put the entire thing on its Web site. If you have yet to hear it, you should.

Much of it was a lampoon of broadcasting’s history, especially those good old good days when families huddled around their cathedral radios.

Then, he said, you could listen to shows like Amos and Andy, in which “two white guys could portray ridiculously offensive black stereotypes for the amusement of millions.”

He noted that FDR’s “fireside chats” set the stage for “Chew the Fat with Ike,” “LBJ’s Bull Session” and Bush’s “Hooked on Phonics and Strategery Hour.”

And he joked that everybody remembers Edward R. Murrow for his WW II coverage and for his sign-off—“Good night and Good luck”—but not for his “lesser known phrase, ‘Die, you Nazi cocksuckers.’”

As Collins reported, Robbins did knock media—for national radio playlists, for reducing every debate to just two points of view, for distracting the public from what really matters and for “a pornographic obsession with celebrity culture.”

Wrapping up, Robbins cut the jokes and sarcasm to plead with broadcasters to stop pandering and to offer programming that appeals to “our better nature.”

“Now is the time to recognize that you are not just businessmen but guardians of the human spirit with a responsibility to the health of the nation.” Otherwise, he said, “the road we’re on is a corruption of our former selves.”

According to Variety, about two-thirds of the packed ballroom rose to a standing ovation.

It’s a theme that I’ve heard broadcasters themselves work, but not as passionately or effectively as Robbins seems to have.

The speech was the buzz at the MSTV annual conference and at the VIP reception prior to the TV luncheon later that morning. The reaction was varied, even among the suited broadcast execs whom outsiders might believe all think alike. Some were outraged, some were amused and some were inspired.

Most of the people I talked to—at least the ones who heard it all the way through—liked it. I did too, except for the opening remarks that seemed to reduce the Iraqi war into a personal row between Robbins and his right-wing critics on radio and cable. OK, Tim, you win. Iraq is a mess.

Given his criticism of media and national playlists, he could have called on the government to fix things as many of his liberal buddies would have. Instead, he merely asked broadcasters to do the right thing. Nothing very radical about that.

Now, let’s assess the fallout.

The speech probably did NAB President David Rehr no good. It did upset a lot of people who didn’t feel that the NAB should have turned over its best spot at the convention to an outspoken liberal with no real ties to the broadcasting industry—and one who was not hesitant to spout obscenities.

Rehr’s critics among the membership will use the speech to demonstrate that he is really not in control of things as he should be.

Those same critics are already blaming him for a series of setbacks in Washington and his failure to personally lead the major lobbying efforts.

And Rehr doesn’t even get any points for boldness for bringing in Robbins. From what I gather, NAB tried to quash the speech. After it got a look at it, organizers changed the format, converting the speech into a one-on-one interview with TV critic David Bianculli.

That moved backfired on stage after Robbins mentioned the speech and members of the audience called out for him to give it. He was happy to comply.

The real indignity for Rehr was that his own state-of-the-industry speech, delivered with evangelical fervor before Robbins’s, was completely overshadowed. At least he didn’t have to follow Robbins.

By week’s end, all had settled down. The Robbins speech didn’t have legs outside the convention. As I said, it was the context that made it special.

Former Joint Board Chairman Phil Lombardo was among those who walked out of the speech, angry that Robbins would use the forum for a political rant—the bashing of Bush and his Iraqi policies.

But three days later, Lombardo told me he was over it. And, no, he said, he did not believe the incident had caused any lasting damage to Rehr, although the NAB boss had to accept “a lot of good natured ribbing.”

In his blog for B&C, Bianculli rightly notes that Robbins speech echoed Murrow’s “lights and wires” speech 50 years ago at the annual RTNDA convention as well as FCC Chairman Newton Minow’s “vast wasteland” speech at the NAB in 1961.

Big difference, however. Robbins is no Murrow—or Minow for that matter.

He’s just an actor and he did what actors do. He put on a show.

Harry A. Jessell in editor of TVNEWSDAY. If you have a comment on this column, drop him a line at hajessell@tvnewsday.com.