As the presidential primaries pile up, so do the television ad dollars. The recent Super Bowl also was a strong shot in the arm, with 30-second spots going for $2.3 million.
Another bonanza was pre-Super Bowl “ambush advertising.” These are ads that ran just prior to the Super Bowl that alluded to the game without specifically referring to it. This allowed advertisers to bypass the NFL’s copyright.
With the Olympics now on the radar screen and as the presidential race moves toward the starting line, 2004 looks like the elixir the television industry has been waiting for. While these are positive economic factors, RF manufacturers aren’t expecting a bonanza any time soon.
While transmitter manufacturers have returned to selling full-power, DTV-ready transmitters, customers aren’t exactly lining up. What is spurring sales is that the newer high-efficiency amplifier tubes from E2V (EEV), CPI, L-3 Electron Devices, and Thales Tubes & Components offer huge power bill savings. Based on the savings, many DTV full-power transmitters could be off the books in four to five years.
Even with all the positive economic factors pointing to a full recovery, RF sales are stalled by the FCC’s backlog of full-power extensions. And if the transmitter sales are lagging, so is the movement of ancillary RF products, such as transmission lines, antennas, towers, elbows, filters, etc.
At Dielectric, marketing vice president Jay Martin points out that the replacement market is slow. He says the ancillary product sales are lagging because transmitter sales are slow now. And this, he insists, is because the FCC has been accepting full-power extensions. This is happening, despite the fact that many stations are faced with potential interference protection problems.
But the RF manufacturers have always been resilient. In the case of Dielectric, watch for them to follow the lead of transmitter manufacturers in offering services.
Understanding that engineering talent is waning; general managers have been encouraging transmitter manufacturers to offer remote monitoring and diagnostic services. By using these services, stations will spend more with the transmitter manufacturers, but it will allow stations to beef-up their engineering staff without hiring anyone new.
Although transmitter manufacturers have come a long way in designing built-in transmitter diagnostics, their response to the dwindling at-station RF-knowledgeable engineering talent pool has been to offer remote monitoring and diagnostic services.
For Dielectric, this translates to offering remote tower light monitoring. What’s more, Dielectric will be able to track and measure the antenna’s VSWR. This aspect of their service could be significant to stations suffering through heavy ice and snow conditions.
Over on the microwave side, NSI reports that sales have been quite good over the last year.
Microwave Radio (MRC) has diversified to take advantage of their equipment that can be applied to homeland security projects, opening up a new market for the company.
ENG remote equipment is holding steady, but for most RF ancillary RF product manufacturers, the squeeze is on to offer services and products that will support the primaries and upcoming presidential election. Surely, the NAB will see a bevy of new RF products, including more innovations from Telecast Fiber Systems.
So as the pieces of the television broadcast puzzle fall into place, everyone senses that what’s missing is that pileup of extensions. Yet even with the extensions, the coming blizzard of Olympic and political advertising will encourage many stations to move ahead.
RF manufacturers are reporting that more and more stations are moving forward, offering a more consistent schedule of on-air DTV time. This is being fueled more by agreements with cable TV systems looking to bolster their DTV subscriber tier rates.
Being cautiously optimistic, the consensus among both RF transmitter and ancillary RF product manufacturers is that by the third quarter of 2004, the extensions logjam will ease up and recovery for broadcast sales will be well underway.
The whole industry will benefit when the RF DTV transition gets on the fast track, because that will free up more capital expenditure for studio and infrastructure DTV transitions.
The DTV transition has been a long, weary trek, but at least now there’s reason to believe the beginning of the end is in sight. After all, the light at the end of the tunnel was never turned off for lack of interest.
CATEGORIES
LATEST ARTICLES
