The National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing a Covid-19 strain on revenue for the past two years.
The organization said on Monday the pandemic prevented NATPE from hosting its flagship events, which typically generate “significant revenue.” The cancellations forced NATPE to operate on its financial reserves, and so, it’s filing a petition to restructure its business.
NATPE, which is geared towards events curated for the content industry, cancelled in-person conferences in January 2021 and January 2022. The organization in February announced a slate of both virtual and in-person events scheduled for 2022. Those include the marketplace event NATPE Budapest – hosted from June 27-30 – and NATPE Streaming Plus – hosted last week on September 29.
NATPE Streaming Plus, the organization’s fourth annual event focused on the streaming industry, featured media executives from Vizio, FilmRise and other players in the OTT space.
NATPE has two in-person events in the works for next year. Its annual trade show is scheduled for January 17-19, 2023, and will be relocated from Miami to Nassau, Bahamas. The Budapest event will return in June 2023, with NATPE saying it doesn’t presently intend to cancel either of those events.
“NATPE is looking at all possible options to restructure, including raising funds through strategic alliances, and continue to operate NATPE as a more streamlined and reorganized operation,” stated the organization.
“For almost 60 years, NATPE has been the leading global professional association for content producers, distributors, developers, streamers and buyers across all distribution platforms. NATPE is optimistic that it will emerge from the reorganization process in the same position,” the statement continued.
NATPE’s bankruptcy filing is indicative of Covid’s impact on live trade show events. Last year, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and SCTE announced plans for a joint forum linking their overlapping events – NAB’s Broadcast Engineering and Information Technology (BEIT) conference and SCTE’s Cable-Tec Expo.
Both of those conferences, however, shifted to a virtual format last year on account of a surge in the Covid-19 delta variant. NAB and SCTE resumed in-person events this year.
In other bankruptcy-related news, recent media reports suggested Sinclair Broadcast Group is looking to divest its subsidiary Diamond Sports – the operator of Bally Sports regional sports networks. Diamond, reportedly on the verge of bankruptcy, could be sold for $3 billion including debt.