There is no doubt: If one wants to stay in the television business, investments must be made. The biggest challenge facing programmers today is investing wisely when you're in the transition to digital. During this transition, it is imperative to re-evaluate the business model. The goal is to continue to be a profitable business. The problem is to maximize existing investments in equipment and personnel, while maintaining a competitive image on the air. Additional services such as multicasting and Web flows should also be considered.
In the past, as programmers cut their investments in personnel and equipment, there was a large gap between internal resources and the resources that were actually required. As integrators, our biggest challenge is to help programmers achieve this digital transition, since they simply do not have the available personnel to carry out this task while keeping an existing plant up in the air. Add to all this the aging of analog equipment, very little of which can be used again. The challenge: updating and improving, staying up in the air and not exhausting bank accounts. Today's system integrator doesn't simply design; the integrator collaborates and innovates to maximize the success of the programmer.
The key to an effective transition is to find new efficiencies in signal flow and equipment management, while maintaining a high-quality airborne design. One component of the new efficiency is effective investment in automation. Although transmission automation has already been on the market for some time, most stations still operate manually. The new opportunities of multicasting and webcasting mean that this model, which was profitable in the past, now generates prohibitive costs. With automation, a single operator can easily manage multiple airflows making the already limited staffing equipment more efficient.
Other areas related to the new efficiencies are signal flow and investment in the equipment that accompanies it. Since most stations simply switch between a program and commercial ones, an investment of more than $70,000 in a master control for each flow is often unnecessary. The alternative is to turn on the vertical interval on the router using the download devices for logo insertion and backtracking, all under automation control. This can be done with a fragment of the traditional cost.
Automation makes airborne operations less labor-intensive. Some of our clients have even discovered that proper interstitial media programming generates an extra 15 to 30 seconds per hour of airtime!
Recognizing that we still don't see a large number of customers involved in multicasting today, it seems like we're entering that era as programmers begin to consolidate multiple stations into a single master control center. Companies like The Ackerley Group and USA Broadcasting have transitioned to digital for multiple stations by consolidating central controls in one place.
With The Ackerley Group, DST has created three points to centralize the operations of various television stations in its regions; each set of stations is known as a Regional Group of Stations. The central points, the WIXT-TV in Syracuse (New York); KGET-TV in Bakersfield, California, and KCBA-TV in Salinas, California, each serve up to five or more individual stations. Each of the points uses a Central Server + for Digital CentralCasting, a concept developed and introduced by The Ackerley Group. Digital CentralCasting defines the process of delivering digital television, from a central transmission system to other stations in a Regional Group of Stations in a geographical region, through a fiber optic network.
Perhaps the most advantageous aspect of centralization is the efficiency in equipment investments: A large router, a large server, and a large system for the long-form cost much less in aggregate routers than in multiple routers, video servers, and tape systems. With this centralization, there is also the possibility for a single central control operator to deal with multiple program flows. This also allows traffic and other sections to be centralized, increasing cost savings.
For The Ackerley Group, placing these systems in regional clusters has bolstered cost efficiency by keeping signal transport costs, which is typically fiber, down. We are very pleased to have played an important role in this project.
For groups that do not have these regional systems, this has been a decisive obstacle. The cost of sending the signal across the country has been manageable, but the cost of bringing the signal to the station via the local phone company from the provider to the other side of the country is prohibitive. I wish I had 5 cents every time I heard the expression "The last mile will kill you!" However, the emergence of intermediaries negotiating point-to-point fiber routes and fares, has brought this within the limits of accessibility, even for signal crossings from coast to coast.
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