When you get down to it, the heart and soul of the NATPE experience are people like Elaine Walton of Wilmington, N.C.

Walton, who describes herself as "an entrepreneur who likes adventure," pitched her tiny tent on the exhibition floor this year in the hopes of selling someone on the promise of her "next hit sitcom," a comedy dubbed "Baby Blues," about a competing set of newlywed couples in Wilmington and their parents who are pushing hard for "grandbabies."

Walton and her partner Bud Dowdey have shot a 23-minute pilot for "Baby Blues," in high-def "with three cameras." She's got the whole package ready to be wrapped up in a bow for some network programming exec, "complete with original lyrics and music and future show synopsis," plus plans for ancillary merchandise including a line of clothing.

Walton was showing off her baby to anyone who passed by her shoe box-size booth tucked in between two other unknown shingles in the "independent producers pavilion" housed in the shadow of NBC Universal's fort in the middle of the floor. Walton pressed a "Baby Blues" T-shirt into my hand before I could politely decline.

What drives people like Elaine Walton? What makes them write, cast and shoot their vision of what a good family comedy should be (tagline: "Diabolical Nana-wannabees will stop at nothing to have grandbabies"), and then go so far as to book square footage at an industry confab in the hopes of striking gold?

The confab kicks off in earnest today with the opening of the exhibition floor and the exhibit suites here at the Mandalay Bay. NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker is the keynoter this ayem. The Peacock's PR team has promised that he'll make some news in his remarks. Stay tuned.

Update 10 a.m.:

Well, it was true. Zucker's remarks were provocative. He bluntly stated that "the historic economic model supporting broadcasting is wounded" and he drew a clear line between the disruption caused by the writers strike as an opportunity for NBC to re-engineer how it handles development and production. He called it an "interesting paradox" and compared it to a forest fire - devastating, "but it may leave behind fertile soil and clear ground and opportunity for robust growth."

Zucker amplified his recent comments about pilots and overall producer deals as out of step with broadcasting's challenged economics.

"We're in the middle of a wrenching analog to digital transition that demands a reengineering at the network and the station level," he said.

Going forward, NBC will do far fewer pilots - more like 5 or 6 instead of 20. But he was quick to emphasize that the peacock programmers will also be making more straight to series orders, borrowing a cue from cable and reality tv biz and its reliance on "more instinct and gut."

Zucker reiterated that NBC is unlikely to do a traditional "glitzy" upfront presentation at 30 Rock this year. And he made a big point of hammering the FCC for wrong-headed policy crusades during the past few years, what he called "isolated and disconnected" efforts fueled by "regulatory passions of the moment."

He called for a comprehensive review of communications policy designed for the media landscape "of 2008, not 1948."

Just arrived in Sin City to cover my first NATPE confab in five years. Ought to be an interesting to take the pulse of execs, station managers and sundry others during the next few days at this precarious time in the TV biz.

With only a handful of new syndie strips bound for the fall of '08, the big drama of the confab is expected to be whether or not Fox's Twentieth Television decides to greenlight a yakker hosted by Steve Harvey. Word is that BET is interested in the show for simultaneous run in latenight. I'm guessing will know if it's a yea or nay by the time the NATPE exhibition floor opens on Tuesday. I'd also submit that one of the biggest stories this year is the fact that my esteemed Variety colleague John Dempsey is not here, by his own choice. Dempsey's been covering NATPE for longer than most stars of "Gossip Girl" have been alive, so it's about time he got a break! We'll try to do you proud, John....

Apropos of NATPE and syndication, look what just showed up in my inbox. A release heralding the news that "Baywatch" is back -- with repeats airing Monday-Thursday on ION Television starting March 3. With me at NATPE, and Pamela Anderson's masterwork coming back to the small screen, it's 1995, all over again...

Had some fun this morning at the LATV Festival panel on how digital media is changing the face of TV. Not sure if we answered that question in 75 minutes, but the panelists were a good cross-section of the biz and they were talkative, which made my job easy. Chris Henchy, veteran writer-producer and head of Will Ferrell and Andy McKay's Gary Sanchez Prods., was one of the panelists, yakking about FunnyorDie.com, the comedy Web site that launched stealthily in April with some very funny Ferrell shorts and an open invitation for undiscovered comic geniuses to submit their own shorts. In "American Idol" fashion, users are invited to vote on their fave/least fave shorts, some of which become "Immortal" and some of which are banished to "the Crypt," never to be seen again.

It's kinda mind-boggling but the Ferrell short "The Landlord" (featuring a pic-stealing performance from McKay's toddler-daughter Pearl) has been viewed more than 40 million times since FunnyorDie.com bowed in mid-April. Henchy (pictured above at right with Ferrell), who's also busy juggling feature projects and an HBO pilot, said they're in the midst of trying to partner with a local comedy establishment to bring some of the undiscovered talents on FunnyorDie out of their basements and bathrooms to a showcase event that would be streamed live, natch, on FunnyorDie. And he confirmed that most of the Gary Sanchez-produced stuff on the site is filmed in under an hour, and slapped up on to the site while the DV cam is still warm. Gotta love the digital age.

Another panelist, "Heroes" co-exec producer Jesse Alexander, promised that the show had lots of fun in store for fans this weekend and Comic-Con and when season two of the NBC hit bows in September.

NATPE's inaugural LATV fest celebrating the smallscreen gets underway in earnest tomorrow. I'm planning to start my day on Wednesday at Hollywood & Highland moderating a panel, "Blowing Up the Boob Tube: How the Digital Frontier Has Changed our Relationship with TV," that aims to make sense of what all of the new digital options available to the masses mean for the old-fashioned business of television. (Wish us luck!) Panels, seminars, NATPE Boot Camp (TV producing/pitching/selling 101) sessions are going on all day Wednesday at H&H, and all day Thursday at House of Blues. Here's Variety's story from a few months back on why NATPE decided it was high time this town had its own TV industry-themed panel sesh-fest.