• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Harris For Sale

J

JustPastBuffalo

Taylor On Radio said:
... Harris will sell off its “Broadcast Communications” business ... Harris, with its signage prominently suspended from the ceiling of the Exhibit Hall, probably spent at least $3 million for its presence in Las Vegas. Now – that whole division is for sale, and the industry’s watching to see whether it goes to a single buyer, or is dispersed in multiple pieces. If you’ve been around a radio or TV station or transmitter site, you’ve seen the Harris name on numerous pieces of equipment. But what used to be a core business for Florida-based Harris is now “no longer aligned with the company's long-term strategy."
Click to expand...

A lot of people in the business have a connection with this company, first as Gates, then Harris: Transmitters, boards, audio processors like the Sta-Level and Level-Devil, turntables and accessories. Makes you think about that first board that you flipped on the mic, cued a record, rolled a Sunday morning pray-for-pay show or started a cart. The Gates Stereo Yard was my first hands-on board. Nothin' fancy, but functional.
 
I read that too JPB. Guessing they've seen the future and perhaps feel as relevant as an ITC triple decker in a .wav world. Can't recall the last time I saw a new piece of Harris equipment around my cluster, although our CE buys from their broadcast supply.

Haven't they been moving away from broadcast equipment for many years?
 
Harris spent a lot of money buying up existing technology and companies on the television side, but I can't speak for radio. Their presence at NAB was staggering as usual and very well attended. You couldn't get near anything for a good demo without an appointment. We just have to hope that whoever acquires them has good business sense and will support the large base of installed equipment out there. It would probably make sense to break up divisions and sell them off individually. I don't know who would want to purchase the company as a whole, it's so wide-ranging.
 
Harris is going to keep its military, industrial and government radio divisions--their production and engineering center in Rochester is even expanding, building out a new facility on Jefferson Road to replace cramped quarters in the Atlantic Avenue/Winton Road area and taking on more people to handle the new contracts they're getting worldwide. Broadcast transmitters and studio gear, which used to be their bread and butter in the Gates days and even afterward, have become something of an afterthought now.

The division still makes money, I gather, but a lot of stations are keeping their existing gear longer, as long as maintenance parts to support it are still available. Maybe back in the day they made the stuff TOO well--we're still running a more than 25-year-old MW-5 as our main transmitter, and we've had very little downtime and thus little reason to fire up our old RCA BTA-5G backup (a 1955 model which also still works well and sounds good--it was built almost bulletproof, although like all the old tube-type gear it's a power hog). I'm sure a lot of AM and FM stations are still running oldies-but-goodies in their transmitter shacks, and spending their capital on updated studio and production equipment, and that's why Harris wants to spend its time and money on growth businesses.
 
Shortly after we upped power to 20kw in 2006-2007, we learned from our phasing/terminating gear contractor, Kintronics, that Harris had abruptly exited the AM business and was simply referring their customers to the Kings in Tennessee. I thought that was a bizarre business decision - why not at least try to sell the business? But Harris just shut it down cold.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom