NEW YORK: Big Apple TV stations are no longer keen to move to the new World Trade Center, aka “Freedom Tower.” Emerging reports indicate the Metropolitan TV Alliance there is concerned about the $10 million a year it would cost them to transmit signals from the new space.
The 11 TV stations that belong to the Alliance are now broadcasting from the Empire State Building, where CBS maintained a lease even as the rest of the city’s stations relocated exclusively to the World Trade Center. When the WTC towers went down in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, broadcasters in the city were left scrambling for transmission capability. Most returned to Empire, which was the nexus of TV signal transmission before the TWC was erected.
Saul Shapiro is the head of the MTVA. He told The New York Observer that a new WTC antenna has not been ruled out entirely, but that some members are reluctant to shell out the big bucks necessary to lease the real estate.
“Some of the members have different finances, and are looking at broadcast in a different way going forward,” he said. “Locating at 1 World Trade was not the ideal solution for all the members.”
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