2007 budgets and capital expenditures: VPs/Engineering discuss
In this yearly RBR feature, we ask top engineers at the radio groups where 2007 budgets and capital expenditures are heading. What's tops on the list for projects and new equipment? This year, we asked the following:
Steve Davis, CC Radio SVP, Engineering & Capital Management
Milford Smith, VP/Engineering, Greater Media
Wes Davis, Corporate Director of Engineering, NextMedia Group
Martin Stabbert, Citadel Director of Engineering
Tom Ray, Corporate DOE for Buckley Broadcasting/WOR-AM NY
Glynn Walden, CBS Radio VP/Engineering
Your 2007 cap ex and operating budgets: What issues are on the table, what projects are you planning?
Steve Davis: We await the FCC's passage of their digital radio rulemaking to clarify the regulations and ease the regulatory burden of deploying HD radio. HD radio and secondary audio services continue to be major focuses for us. Backup equipment and facilities for disaster readiness also figure heavily into our plans. Lots of IT-related initiatives to improve efficiency mean a lot of computer hardware and software including development costs (we continue to develop a lot of software in-house). The NYC studio consolidation is a large project along with other major projects we have in the works including building a new 50 KW AM array in Boston.
Smith: Greater Media made a couple of major acquisitions this year (Boston/Philadelphia). In fiscal 2007, (also calendar 2007 for us), we will be implementing permanent studio and transmitter facilities for these stations.
Philadelphia is pretty much a ground up build in both cases; in Boston it's getting to the level of redundancy and functionality we need going forward. Also, for the group, flushing out our HD Radio efforts and updating or replacing a significant amount of our automation equipment. The major stuff is basically the work associated with the Philadelphia and Boston acquisitions, the completion of a major AM power increase in Philadelphia and completing our HD efforts in New Jersey.
Wes Davis: Continued conversion to HD. Aging AM stations. 40-year old FM panel antennas. We're planning at least one major facilities move.
Stabbert: Obviously the ABC Radio transition. Also, I would say one of the bigger challenges with HD (and of course the widespread implementation of profanity delays) is getting pre-delay audio, real time audio, to remote venues for talent cueing. We have not found a one-size-fits-all solution for every market. This is both in HD and just a standard programming issue because of profanity delays. Not only does the talent lack the ability to hear the studio and real time but there are times when there's an audience at the venue that in the past we would have just played the station over the PA system. That's also not a possibility. So it can be solved as easily as using a cell phone with an ear bud for the talent, but on the more elaborate setups it might mean ISDN with a separate PA feed. It might mean a second RPU connection backhaul. In some places you can still get equalized phone lines or really elaborate T1.
We're also using SCAs on FMs to do this with mixed success. If I could buy that solution in a box I'd be really interested in talking to that vendor.
Ray: Just HD radio installations at various stations throughout the company and keeping the budget down.
Walden: HD conversions and ongoing transmitter replacements. New digital transmission facility for WFNY and WNEW, studio moves.
What's on the HD Radio implementation frontier?
Steve Davis: Continued aggressive rollout. We hope to get to 470 or more stations converted by the end of 2007.
Smith: Greater Media was one of the first companies to fully build out its permanent HD facilities in its major markets including HD-2 facilities. We continue to tweak and improve these facilities. Additionally we are on track to complete most if not all of our other than major market builds in 2007, including HD-2 implementations.
Wes Davis: Several more HD build outs and a couple of HD2 projects.
Stabbert: We have two stations that are running separate antennas. One of them seems to be okay and the other is not very good. We have seen far better, far more consistent HD performance on the FM's where we are using the same antenna to transmit the HD as well as the analog. They are both in a low-level combined scenario or in a dual input scenario, but we haven't seen that have as much success with the dual antenna scenario.
Ray: We have several FM's that need to come on line.
Walden: We will continue with our ongoing HD conversion program.
Did you attend the NAB Radio Show this year? If so, what did you find to be outstanding or groundbreaking?
Steve Davis: Lots of encouraging development with HD radio including higher power low level combined transmitters by a number of manufacturers and some creative methods for reducing dropouts in studio-transmitter links via buffering and feedback loops.
Smith: What I found most remarkable was the seeming reinvigoration of the Radio Industry that was evident. This new attitude was everywhere. David Rehr has put NAB on the offensive going forwarded as we deal with the competition from the multiplicity of new delivery systems out there. Given the recent reality checks provided by Wall Street (finally) the bloom is definitely off satellite radio; the so called "death star" seems to be fading. The industry is embracing a lot of peripheral technology that can only help to expand the medium and its attractiveness to listeners. By the end of the show I felt pretty good about the future of the oldest of the electronic media!
Wes Davis: Yes, in Vegas. Axia studio solutions. Nautel transmitters.
Stabbert: I did attend. I thought for one the technical presentations were very good. Excellent content, I just wished there had been more. I did spend some time on the show floor but not as much as I had hoped. I was very happy to see Broadcast Electronics with a tube-type FM HD transmitter. Harris was showing theirs. I was glad to hear that Continental is raising the bar even higher with the power levels that they can do with their tube type transmitter. Of course Nautel was there with their transmitters. The one caveat on the high powered HD tube transmitters is efficiency-I don't think a lot of people are looking at it. The first couple we have on the air use more electricity, generate more heat than we anticipated. We put one in this May, it was in an enclosed room with ten-tons of air conditioning and it couldn't keep up with it. That was a problem.
Ray: Didn't get to Dallas. I was busy with the WOR transmitter facility.
Walden: New and improved HD Exciters; New HD monitoring gear; New codec offerings that add diversity and flexibility for remote broadcasts.
