With headliners that include the who’s who from Google, TiVo, HP, Sling Media and NHK, this year’s National Association of Broadcasters conference that runs from April 14-19 in Las Vegas may mark the shift of NAB from a hardware-driven extravaganza to an exhaustive multimedia state of the union.

And you won’t find much in the way of traditional broadcast creation, management and distribution at this year’s show, either. A quick glance at the lineup of speakers, conferences, sessions and exhibitors at the world’s largest broadcast conference pronounces the digital revolution that we noted in Playback last year a full digital evolution 12 months later.

NAB is all over Google, with a keynote address by company CEO Eric Schmidt on April 16 and a super session featuring David Eun, VP of content partnership, on April 17.

Despite its $1-billion copyright infringement lawsuit from Viacom, Google recently inked a deal with BBC that will see the Brit pubcaster get its own channel on YouTube. Content will include BBC hits such as Life on Mars and Doctor Who, and additional shows from BBC Worldwide like Spooks and Top Gear.

Schmidt will likely attract the masses who want the magic-bullet recipe on how one company managed to command 60% of online advertising revenue.

Interactive and cross-platform are the buzzwords this year, illustrated by new events such as a two-day telecom conference April 16 and 17 dealing in part with the tech side of broadband video, a super session April 17 focusing on IPTV, and another on April 16 featuring Hewlett-Packard’s EVP Shane Robison called ‘Digital Content: The Race is On,’ in which he’ll highlight some of the new business models and technology necessary to take advantage of the demand for mobile digital content.

Predictably, NAB will be taking up even more space this year, commandeering all available halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The expansion comes with a redesign of the show floor, which now maxes out at nearly 900,000 square feet.

A whopping 470 international companies will showcase cutting-edge technology and services for the electronic media industry. Many of them will also be featured in international pavilions, including the Bavarian Pavilion, Belgian Pavilion, China Pavilion, France-Bretagne International Pavilion, Korean DMB Pavilion, and the UK@NAB Pavilion.

Look for major announcements from majors like Sony, Panasonic, Thomson, TSL, Quantum, Apple, Adobe and others.

Last year, more than 25,000 people representing 141 countries traveled from outside the U.S. to NAB2006, for a total of 105,000 attendees. NAB also recently announced a record high 82 international delegations expected at NAB2007, up from 72 last year.

www.nabshow.com