BE Radio May/June 1996 Managing Technology Expand, rebuild or start over? By William Fawcett ------------------------------------------------------------------------ William Fawcett is president of Mountain Valley Broadcast Service, Inc., a broadcast engineering firm in Harrisonburg, VA. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Unlike the fast-food restaurant that remodels every few years, a broadcaster who heaps change upon change will seldom get past paying for capitalization. Yet broadcasters need change, because like the fast-food customer, your customers are fickle. Therefore, long-term planning must allow for flexibility when considering facility improvements. Your goal should be to not have to repeat the same process in four years. The choices you have to accommodate growth come down to three basic options with a few variants: Expand the existing facility with (contiguous, adjacent or wholly separate) new space; renovate the existing facility into a more efficient configuration; or start from scratch with a new facility (either ground-up construction or a renovation of someone else's former space). The best choice is always dictated by your specific situation. A common ingredient to the current mix of parameters that radio broadcasters face when making these decisions is the consolidation trend. This can multiply the problem by having to make the same decisions for several different existing facilities around town. Acquisitions of new stations can be complicated, but the complexities of an acquisition pale in comparison to the challenges of physical consolidation. Nevertheless, a carefully thought-out plan might very well be the catapult from malaise to success. In radio, as with most any industry, the workforce and facilities are divided into three basic categories: Management, Sales, and Production. Determine first if your style of business leads to a consolidated or discrete facility. Look at the physical needs of each department, and remember to build flexibility into your plan. Pay particular attention to the production area, because it is experiencing the greatest impact of new technologies. Get away from obsolete divisions like "news", "programming" and "music". Here's an industrial analogy: the manufacturing facility that uses flexible tooling will surely outlive the plant that can only produce one kind of widget. Markets change. All three divisions need to be physically able to react to and adapt to these changes. An aged facility might include interconnected buildings from several generations. Room sizes were set by a previous paradigm. Traffic flow can be a real problem, infrastructure is taxed to the limit, and so on. Evaluate the chokepoints to further growth, and work towards a plan for the ideal future facility. Then you're ready to tackle the question-at-hand: "Expand, Rebuild or Start Over?" A first step would be to list the advantages of each of these options, and choose the most attractive. of course, it's not that simple; each circumstance presents different limitations. In the case of consolidated facilities, these limitations can affect the whole. This may actually lead you to maintain some separation between functions, rather than take the intuitive approach of maximizing consolidation to maximize economies of scale. Consider the following issues: Regulatory considerations The location(s) of your transmission facilities are established by the regulations contained in 47 CFR Part 73. These restrictions probably won't affect your studio or office construction plans, because most good transmission sites are not good studio or office locations anyway. FCC restrictions only enter the picture in the case of consolidation, when you must determine if it is possible, or even desirable, to co-locate several stations at one transmission site. A good starting point is to have your engineering consultant conduct an Area to Locate Study (ALS) for each facility and see if the locations are congruent. Less obvious are the other restrictions that may preclude the installation of new towers. Environmental and zoning restrictions make the placement of any new towers a major chore. Don't assume anything -- the construction of any new transmission facility will be met with great resistance. This factor alone may significantly shape your strategy, especially because good will and positive public relations with your community (i.e., your audience) may be involved. Even replacing a rusty 50-year-old tower with a new tower may lead to permit problems. Here the regulatory agencies must be convinced this is a "repair," not a new project. You may discover that your grandfathered, special-use permit does not apply to such a rebuild. Restrictions on RF power densities in areas accessible to the public, or by your workforce, is also a major consideration. A cursory study is required at each license renewal, but do not assume you can add stations to the same tower just because the present situation is acceptable. This is often a problem even at remote antenna farms. Again, an engineering study is required. Mitigation may require additional fencing, special half-wave spaced antennas, and in many cases a taller tower. Of course, the taller tower option puts you right back into the permit process discussed in the preceding paragraphs. Propagation Just because a transmitter site falls with the ALS region doesn't mean it is good or even acceptable. Real thought should be given to this "should-be-obvious-but-often-isn't" kind of problem. For example, jacking up the power on an antenna that is 30 feet below average terrain doesn't make much sense. A split facility requires line-of-sight between the studios and each transmitter site if microwave STLs are used. Much flexibility can be gained by the use of digital landlines, or microwave repeater sites, but each circumstance should be evaluated for cost effectiveness and reliability. If you need to erect a tower for your repeater site, you're back in the permit process again. Main studio location In most cases, FCC regulations (73.1150) stipulate that a station's main studios be located within a certain proximity to the city of license. Creative minds can usually find a way around this problem, but it may not be cheap or effective. Regardless, this problem must be solved before an overall plan can be devised. Furthermore, acceptable locations of your transmitter and studio sites are co- dependant. Possible solutions include the establishment of a "shell studio" with a skeleton staff (often a branch location for the sales staff), a petition to the Commission for an exemption, or a petition to change the table of allotments (in other words, a new city of license). In the case of FCC petitions, don't look for cooperation from your competitors. It's possible that these restrictions will be eased sometime in the future, but that time may not come until broadcasters are faced with competition from DBS radio. Consider also the non-regulatory aspect of this conundrum: Can you maintain an effective local presence without actually having a local presence? Infrastructure The production facility of the future will have inherent flexibility. Multiple, interchangeable studios will not only provide for growth and changing conditions, but will offer benefits of redundancy. Audio distribution must rely on centralized cross-connect capabilities, and generic -- not specific -- signal distribution architecture. Right now, it's likely that your facility has a hodge-podge of studios, of varying sizes and capabilities, with an evolutionary wiring scheme. Compromises may have been made in acoustic isolation, and traffic-flow schemes may be bizarre (you really shouldn't have to walk through Studio A to get to Studio B). Sometimes the most cost-effective way to put an end to this nonsense is to start over. If your facility is over 25 years old, and especially if it's a multiple-station facility with transmission equipment on-site, chances are good that your electrical service is already taxed to the limit. In such cases, renovation can be very complicated and disruptive. Where permitted by code, you might consider adding a second service (perhaps a single-phase service for office space and a three-phase service for broadcast equipment). Planning for emergency power is also a consideration. In any case, it is important to obtain complete, up-to-date drawings of the existing situation, as well as a current and projected load analysis. Other areas to consider on the question of replacement vs. expansion: telephone systems (if your phone system is still using 25-pair cables from earlier mechanical systems, your are way past due on a complete overhaul); computer networking (cable conduits make much more sense than direct wiring, given the pace of change in this area); HVAC (low-noise requirements are a difficult fit in an "add-on" scheme); and other environmental issues like food service, rest rooms, potable water supplies and sewer disposal (if the existing plant was designed for 20 people, it won't work well with 50). The pitfalls of construction If you decide to expand or rebuild, remember the inconveniences you will encounter during construction. Downtime is expensive, and you must determine just what its costs will be. An alternative is to start over and have one plant operational before the other is shut down. Look at all options and weigh the costs and benefits. Also be aware that the location of additional building space may be limited by the location of existing buried cables, grounding systems or satellite dishes. The effects of dust, noise and mud must also be considered. Delicate electronic equipment and fan-cooled transmitters can be destroyed by concrete and drywall dust. Reasonable acoustic isolation can be overwhelmed by power tool noise in adjacent areas. Good construction management is essential here. Divide and conquer Massive, interrelated problems such as these cannot be handled as a single item. They must be split into component parts, then attacked. Here's a summary of one sensible approach: . Have a plan. If possible, get over any capitalization hurdles early, so you can concentrate on the effects that this change will have on your true assets: you license, your staff and your airtime. . Consider the standard business factors involved. Sound advice from a CPA/financial planner may be helpful. . Examine industry-specific issues clsely. Commission any required engineering studies to gather reliable data. Consider each problem separately, making independent decisions wherever possible, but always keeping the whole picture in mind. Compromises are inevitable, so be sure to have all the information (including costs) of each option before you make decisions. . Finally, pull all of this information together and determine what's best for you. At this point it should be clear that the real issue is a lot bigger than simply whether you're expanding, rebuilding or starting over. Your construction plans are only a single element, and they must be integrated with the overall direction of your business. Once you've made a plan, stick with it. If you try to "fly by the seat of your pants" on this one, you're courting disaster. A methodical, well thought-out business strategy is essential to effective operation and solvency in the next millenium. Copyright 1966 Intertec Publishing Corporation