While Wall Street, Washington, Congress and the media were busy obsessing over the current financial crises, some very smart station executives escaped to an oasis of economic optimism: the NAB's annual Small Market Exchange.

"Believe it or not, we hardly talked about the economy," reports Liz Burns, president of Morgan Murphy Media, who with Madelyn Bonnot Griffin co-chaired the annual three-day confab of station executives from medium and small markets held this year in Scottsdale, Ariz.

By "we," Burns means participants in the pre-conference Small Market Group Roundtable, which she describes as "the 20 top muckety-mucks all rolling up their sleeves and talking plainly about day-to-day issues."

Far from wallowing in pessimism, the roundtable "made you feel optimistic about our business," says Burns.

"Sure we're worried about sales and financials, but everyone talked about practical responses. We focused on which battles to fight and what positions to take."

The emphasis was on short-term cost-cutting and long-term business development.

Although some cutbacks and layoffs may be unavoidable in 2009, the roundtable focused more on such increased efficiencies as energy savings. For starters, February's digital transition will save most stations tens of thousands of dollars each year when they finally turn off their analog transmitters.

One cost-saving idea was to shift a station's peak energy loads to hours when the local utility charges less by rescheduling routine maintenance and computer back-up duties.

There was less enthusiasm for another proposed money-saver: creating an entity in each market to which competing stations could outsource and pool such functions as accounting, IT and even master control. But the prevailing view was that territorial conflicts would be inevitable and tough to overcome.

The roundtable was just the warm-up act.

Burns cites two sessions as standouts, especially when it comes to growing future revenues.

One was an insightful overview of "Best Practices in Mobile and Internet Content" by KHOU Houston's Director of Digital Media Christine DiStadio. Those who could keep pace with her rapid-fire presentation style were rewarded with a several dozen solid examples of mining cash from such diverse new media as election blogs and social networks built around breaking news stories, Burns says.

But, for most attendees, reports Burns, the climax of the two-day conference was "Health Care Tomorrow," a bottom-up analysis of the advertising needs of local health care providers, from private practitioners to large clinical settings.

The panel showcased numerous success stories of how television advertising enhanced their business. "It was a virtual primer on how to talk to doctors and hospitals," says Burns, who was most impressed with the panel's candor and enthusiasm for how stations can design and pitch health care campaigns both on air and online.

The panel was rewarded with a rare standing ovation, the first one bestowed in several years, according to regular attendees.

Burns attributes the effusive reaction to the broadcasters' gratitude for such a clear road map to "a burgeoning and vital new ad category" — a far cry from automotive ("We can't rely on it at this point," says Burns) and political ("not as good as anticipated.")

Mind you, all of this was gravy. For most attendees the main course was that grueling tournament of sales marketing savvy known as the Best of the Best Money Makers Competition.

More than 200 profitable sales promotion ideas had to make it through five rounds of elimination voting to emerge victorious as a Topper.

How effective are these sales promotions? Effective enough that the NAB likes to boast that for stations that replicate just two of them, the Small Market Exchange pays for itself nearly 50 times over based on an average $1,800 per person for registration, travel and lodging.

Giving new meaning to "practice what you preach," three of the four station projects selected as Toppers hailed from Morgan Murphy stations, to the great delight and slight embarrassment of Burns. "I took a lot of ribbing about the competition being fixed."

Starting soon, we'll profile the top Toppers in upcoming Market Share columns. Meanwhile, here's one winning statistic: despite higher airfares and lower sales, the 204 attendance for this year's Small Market Exchange was only 15 fewer than last year.

Liz Burns and co-chair Madelyn Bonnot Griffin are quick to credit their Advisory Committee for the success of the conference. But they reserve their highest praise for the NAB's resourceful and tireless Carolyn Wilkins.

Apparently no slouch herself when it comes to sales prowess, Wilkins has already persuaded Burns and Griffin to co-chair next year's Small Market Exchange in San Antonio, Texas.

Market Share by Arthur Greenwald showcases innovative station promotions every Monday in TVNewsday. Share one of your own success stories by writing to Arthur at greenwald@tvnewsday.com.