 Strategic Consulting for Broadcasters |
home |
|
Newsletter for Broadcasters
|
Prepurchase InspectionsWhen you buy a house, you hire a professional to inspect the property and tell you what is right and wrong with it, to tell you whether the building codes have been met, and to give you a sense of where you will need to put your money in as you repair and improve the property. Same thing for a serious boat or car, or any sort of airplane. It's just common sense. Regardless of what you think about the sales process, the final decision is, ultimately, an emotional one on the part of the buyer. Thoughts flow in a station buyer's mind along the lines of "How can I improve this?" "Will it work better with a taller tower?" "I bet I can double my revenue if I combine it with my other station." The buyer, who is naturally focused on the what-if's and the potentials, needs a disinterested third party to point out that the tower is on the verge of falling down and will cost $125,000 to replace, or that the "coverage map" offered by the seller reflects reality about as well as a Barbie doll reflects the average female of the species, or that the public file has had no entries since 1986, or that the 10kW transmitter is actually only capable of 7.5kW, or... I could go on and on. I was asked recently to become Chief Operator of an AM station in New England. I agreed, pending a search of the paperwork and an inspection of the facility to be sure the station was operating legally. The short list of problems included no paperwork authorizing PreSunrise service, no paperwork authorizing PostSunset and night operations, major instability in the remote base current metering, which wasn't really base current reading at all but a sample taken at the transmitter because all the cabling to the tower was burned out, and perhaps twenty other points. All of these items have been remedied. Some were easy, but some were accomplished only at significant cost to the owner; an owner who promises me that he will never, ever, buy another station without a prepurchase inspection. A friend and station owner in the West asked me for coverage maps for a couple of stations he was thinking about buying. He bought the stations, and was in a hurry to close the deal. He got an AM and an FM. As he describes the situation, it is not clear which station is in worse shape. There is a tower that is supposed to be 180' high that is only 80' high, with 100' of tower sections rusting on the ground nearby. There is a transmitter building that is so flimsy the phone company refused to run an aerial cable to it. There is a tower that is simply not in the right place, at least according to the FCC. I could go on, but a horror story like this is a perfect example of the need for a dispassionate eye on the transaction. I certainly could not have dissuaded my friend from buying the stations, nor would I have tried, because the combination makes such great business sense. But I surely could have prepared him for the reality of the duct-tape-and-spit nature of the facilities he was about to purchase. I got a call a couple of weeks ago from the owner of a new station that was supposed to go on the air that day, but they "were having trouble with it." I'll spare you the long list, but the short list was enough to make any broadcaster shudder: No EAS system, no transmitter remote control, a very expensive dedicated point-to-point digital T1 link between the studio and transmitter with only analog audio available at both ends, an antenna that was mounted 100 feet too high, and a list of regulatory and technical deficiencies that extends to several pages of notes. I was able to fast-track a CPMOD application through the FCC to reduce the transmitter power to compensate for the increased antenna height. That was granted in four business days instead of the usual two to four months. I set up a low-cost Internet STL, and the station is ready to go. Most facilities are better than these examples, of course. But horror stories do exist, and the only way to cue you to a potential disaster is to have a thorough inspection by somebody with the technical and regulatory background to recognize and categorize the problems, and to propose and provide solutions. Next: The Final Rule on City of License Changes
|
| ||||||
