Hang on to your wallets; the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) is about to become law. This mammoth, 258-page bill makes all other government spending look like peanuts.
I downloaded the monster bill to read a few pages. The first topic I searched for was the DTV conversion process. Yep, the politicians have got that covered. Here’s what the ARRA bill says about DTV funding (on page 47):
DIGITAL-TO-ANALOG CONVERTER BOX PROGRAM
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, and in addition to amounts otherwise provided in any other Act, for costs associated with the Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Program, $650,000,000, to be available until September 30, 2009: Provided, That these funds shall be available for coupons and related activities, including but not limited to education, consumer support and outreach, as deemed appropriate and necessary to ensure a timely conversion of analog to digital television.
That’s it! These 71 words result in the spending of $650 million. That’s almost $10 million per word. more…
OMG! The DTV sky is falling! The sky is falling! That seems to be the scuttlebutt from politicians and pundits as the analog cutoff date of Feb. 17 approaches.
“There may be 8 million households without TV service if we don’t do something,” said Senator Feather.
“Why, yes, I totally agree”, said Congresswoman Hen-Beak. “The sky is falling, and Congress must do something.”
The remainder of the barnyard chickens (collectively called Congress) all clucked, “Yes, yes, we must do something now. Quick, let’s throw money at it.”
If the issue of finally moving to all-digital OTA operations weren’t so important, we industry professionals could just laugh at those Washington idiots. To them, everything is a crisis, and every solution is to spend more of our money.
In my April 2008 editorial, “The blame game,” I predicted that the key players — NAB, NTIA, Congress and the FCC — would all be blaming each other for any DTV implementation problems. Guess what? The battle is now in full force. Everyone is crying for more money to be spent, blaming others for the looming deadline and asking why viewers haven’t complied by getting DTV converters. more…
Nothing gets a politician more excited than the smell of money.
Despite predictions of doom and gloom for the nation’s 2009 economy, city and state bureaucrats across the country are practically salivating for the new president to take office. These politicians know that the incoming president has promised billions in federal money to pay for a wide variety of what he calls “shovel ready” projects.
To ensure they are first on Obama’s grant list, the U.S. Conference of Mayors issued on Dec. 19, a report titled, “Main Street Economic Recovery: ‘Ready to go’ Jobs and Infrastructure Projects.” This mammoth, 1494-page wish list contains 15,221 projects for 641 U.S. cities. The mayors claim the projects would create more than 1.2 million jobs over a two-year period. The cost for these ready-to-go and imperative projects? Almost $100 billion!
If approved, taxpayer money will be used to build solar-heated swimming pools in Hawaii, solar-heated roads in Alabama, a $600 million radio for L.A. cops and a $1.5 million waterslide in Florida. These are among what amounts to a virtual grab bag of requests from U.S. mayors. more…
Watching Internet video is not my cup of tea. Even so, I did find myself one night recently watching an interview conducted by CNBC’s David Faber with NBC Universal’s CEO Jeff Zucker. Faber noted a previous comment by Zucker that a digital strategy is difficult, in part, because you are exchanging analog dollars for digital pennies. Zucker said that statement could be updated to “analog dollars for digital dimes,” but that still is mere cents on the dollar. Given that his NBC network realized more than $1 billion in revenue from the Olympic broadcasts this year, one can appreciate his concern about exchanging dollars for dimes.
During this interview, Zucker described the industry’s digital dilemma. The gist of what he said was that a digital strategy is difficult, in part, because you are exchanging analog dollars for digital dimes. Digital is a growth area, but it’s not experienced the fast growth many people expected. So, digital will grow, but he said it’s not going to be the opportunity people thought it was, certainly in the short term.
Is Zucker right? Were broadcasters foolish to have spent $20 billion building huge digital delivery and production infrastructures? Will they only receive pennies and dimes in return? Is there any ROI on this digital investment? Let’s peek into one researcher’s crystal ball. more…
What if your prime-time TV shows were only offered at say, 3 a.m.? Would you stay up all night just to watch “Boston Legal” or “CSI:NY”? Instead, what if most of the television available during your evening prime time were infomercials? Most viewers certainly wouldn’t hurry home from work to watch TV.
Ask yourself why any broadcaster would air the best TV shows during the overnight and schedule infomercials and junk TV during the day and in evening prime time? Add nine hours to your local time and you’ll begin to discover the problem. more…
I’m typing with clinched teeth this morning as the news reports continue nonstop about the automotive industry’s demand that taxpayers bail out its poorly managed, high-union-labor-cost industry. One pundit called giving the automakers any bailout simply pouring bad money into a black hole. He continued by asking what do you get after $25 billion? His answer: the same bankrupt, inefficient, high-labor-cost industry, making cars people don’t want.
It seems to me that most of the industries clamoring for tax dollars are looking to be saved from their own greed. A recent example shows how one company responded when the government rode in to rescue it from its own bad decisions. The insurance giant, AIG, was called too big to let fail, so in early September, the government loaned AIG $85 billion.
I watched as a quite familiar company began installing a backup power generator for the building. It took several months, but was finally connected and ready for operation.
It was tested several times and the all-knowing IT department experts said everything was good-to-go. BTW, this installation was not a broadcast site, but you may know the company.
About three weeks after the system was declared ready for service, the building suffered a power failure. Let’s see what happened. more…
Some of my jogging friends teasingly tell me I have CRD, which stand for Compulsive Running Disorder. Much like OCD, which is a repeated behavior, like washing your hands 50 times a day, my CRD is running.
Day, night, rain, snow, doesn’t matter, give me a new location and I’m off and running. I use the hobby to explore new cities and locations. I’ve run in the majestic shadow of the Swiss mountains, along Lake Geneva. I’ve run down the busy streets of Beijing. I’ve run across all but one major bridge in New York and along the East River. I’ve run in dangerous neighborhoods and rich neighborhoods, foreign lands and across the U.S. I’ve even gotten lost in our nation’s capitol and was forced to ask White House guards to help me find my hotel. The problem was, I couldn’t remember the name of the hotel. But, that’s another story. In races from the East Coast to the Midwest, I’ve run up to 2200 miles in one year, sometimes 100 miles a week. When it’s time to run, I gotta go run, no matter what. more…
The recent election cycle saw the word “change” used about 50 million times. I submit that most of what any politician says is smoke and mirrors, but, hey, give the winners a chance to prove themselves.
There are, however, some real and exciting changes coming to Broadcast Engineering magazine effective with the January 2009 issue.
First, 2009 will be Broadcast Engineering’s 50th anniversary. Few magazines, and none of our competitors, can claim such a legacy. The magazine was began in April 1959 by Donald E. Mehl. Mehl was both publisher and editor. His initial printing was for 5000 copies. Today, Broadcast Engineering generates approximately 12 million reader impressions per year.
The initial magazine covered AM and FM audio and television. The magazine’s first logo, shown above, represented those industries. Today, Broadcast Engineering focuses on television, video, cable, satellite and video production. The AM and FM segments were spun off in 1994 to form our sister publication, Radio magazine. more…
You can’t read a newspaper or news Web site without finding story after story about companies laying off people. ABC, NBC Universal, CBS, you name the network or broadcast company, layoffs have been occurring for almost a year. Yet, while other industries receive billions in taxpayer bailouts, broadcasters won’t be included. We don’t represent enough voters for the politicians to care.
The car makers, however, are in a quite different position with a huge union, representing tens of thousands of voters. Chrysler, Ford and GM seem to have no problem quite publicly begging for a taxpayer bailout of their failed businesses. And, congress seems only too willing to use our tax money to buy themselves more votes, er, bailout these failed enterprises.
And, while Congress fiddles, Rome burns. The unemployment rate in the U.S. rose to 6.7 percent in November, the highest rate in 15 years. That represents more than 10.3 million Americans without work. Businesses cut 533,000 jobs last month, which was the biggest lost in jobs since December 1974. Perhaps, just as bad, the number of workers who have become so disenchanted that they’ve given up even looking for a job rose to 12.5 percent. more…
Broadcast Engineering editorial director Brad Dick offers his thoughts and insights on the changes in the industry. For more, check out his monthly Editorial in Broadcast Engineering magazine. To start up a conversation on about one of Brad's posts, visit the Forum.
Hang on to your wallets; the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) is about to become law. This mammoth, 258-page bill makes all other government spending look like peanuts.
