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Why it isn't smart to have all your radio stations under one roof

Witchlover said:
No it wouldn't, but the discussion veered off on that tangent a couple days ago. If a bad breaker box or a faulty main breaker is the cause of the shutdown, it is ironic that one relatively small link in the chain brought the whole operation to a halt.
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Your observation is on point. The thread has ventured off in a tangent from the original post. If the company would put the eight stations in eight different crummy buildings, there would still be outages but not all eight on the same day at the same time.

In the last week I looked myself in the eye (using a warped mirror) and realized I have to change one significant philosophy and attitude about broadcasting and "consolidated ownership". Here is the problem: If the company put the eight stations in eight different locations, the probability of such a mass silence would be statistically improbable. The other side of the coin: The person or persons (plural) responsible for what the computer people call "moves, adds, changes" along with repairs would become much harder, much more expensive. The technical people, known in the previous generation as engineers, would spend as much time or even more time travelling between buildings than they would spend "fixing". The breakdowns at each of the eight stations would come more often. The repairs would take longer because the tech/techs would have to make trips back and forth between buildings scrounging for parts and tools left at the site of another incomplete move/add/change when they got called from lunch to go fix the other station.

I would suggest the real answer to the original, intended questions early in this thread is that WE ALL dream that the economics of the business would make it possible for every station to have a cast-iron rock-solid well-polished installation with redundancy built in. (Think NBC and CBS back in the late 30s, the 40s and going into the 1950s. Studio B has a problem? Move to Studio E.

Today's economy does not afford that luxury to very many stations today whether they are owned by the biggest of corporate owners or a little hometown station that has been in the family for three generations now. When you do find one.... it can be something of a religious experience just to tour the place!
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
..... WE ALL dream that the economics of the business would make it possible for every station to have a cast-iron rock-solid well-polished installation with redundancy built in. (Think NBC and CBS back in the late 30s, the 40s and going into the 1950s. Studio B has a problem? Move to Studio E.

Today's economy does not afford that luxury to very many stations today whether they are owned by the biggest of corporate owners or a little hometown station that has been in the family for three generations now. When you do find one.... it can be something of a religious experience just to tour the place!
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True. But today's economy DOES make it possible to have a multi station cluster manned 24x7 by someone competent to flip a breaker when it goes off. In too many places, market managers feel justified in closing the doors and turning out the lights on nights and weekends.

When they do that, significant time off the air will result a few times per year. And such is mismanagement.
 
Having seen the facilities myself, there is no way you would have anyone but an experienced electrician enter into the basement of that old building to doing anything with the electrical system, including just resetting a breaker...and it was more than just a tripped breaker that caused the problem.
As for the original topic of having 8 stations in one building, can you imagine what the lease payments or mortgage payments would be to have a different building for each stations. Even if you split into just 2 seperate buildings you have to pay two payments plus taxes and utilities and two of eveything. It does not take an Economics professor to figure out that is just bad business practice. Have one building, but make sure you have back ups to your back up....something most radio stations do not have anymore.
 
In my mind, I'm picturing the Douglas farmhouse on Green Acres!
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Interesting you should mention that, because there were times when you almost HAD to climb the telephone pole to put a caller on the air.

TDO
 
It's interesting to read posts on Radio-Info. I know that most mean well, but without sufficient information it is futile. rcombs hit it pretty much on the head. For all of you that pontificate about the subject, let me give you the facts so everyone can understand what has happened. First of all, Cumulus owns two floors of the American Federal Building in downtown Macon. So being part of a condo association anything and everything that is done in the way of maintenance and repair has to first have a bid and then the majority has to vote in favor of the expenditure. In this case we have a massive circuit breaker that has problems. We don't know what is tripping it, but it seems to come from surges from the outside. Second, the breaker cannot just be replaced. It will have to be rebuilt. That requires engineering and permitting(probably 2 to 3 weeks to accomplish) because of other things that will have to be changed. Third, it will probably take the better part of two days to repair and thousands of dollars to do so. In the meantime we have a generator on standby and in the event that the breaker goes completely out we will be up and running with the generator in a matter of a couple of hours. So with all that said, there is a plan in place, but it has lots of moving parts and lots of what ifs. And let me add two things. We do have a very competent engineer that has been working his butt off keeping us on the air. And FEMA has just completed an on site assessment of what it will take to put in a generator large enough to power the stations in the event of a disaster or power outage. We have some stations with generators at the transmitter sites and during the Mother's Day tornadoes of last year we lost very little air time even though power was out at transmitter sites for days.

So hopefully everyone will gain a little more insight on what it takes to keep 8 radio stations on the air 24/7/365. It's not easy and it's especially not cheap. I know everyone means well, but we don't live in a perfect world. After 37 years in this crazy business, I can sincerely say that Cumulus is the best company I have ever worked for. I know there are a lot of Cumulus haters out there and this is the first time I have ever made comment on these boards, but I thought it was appropriate considering the lack of information that has been given through the other media and this site. Hope this answers a lot of questions.
 
Well, it answers quite a few of mine. Thank you. I had never considered how the relationship among the several building occupants might affect what Cumulus would be able to do there. Tell me if you know, what type of electrical service -- 200-amp, 300-amp, greater? -- would an operation like this require? I should think the greater the better.
 
Well, in regards to the service size, on the 5th floor where are offices are we have 3 - 200 amp services. And now for a further update. It was determined finally by the electricians that there was a short in one of the 3 feed lines in the basement (actually in the concrete floor) and they are now planning to fix this problem this Saturday when the power can be shut down to the 5th floor. Since all studios are on the 7th there should be no lost air time for any of our 8 stations. The short was causing a fuse to blow and sometimes a huge breaker that controls power to almost every floor of the 10 story building. We are currently operating with about 1/3 of the fifth floor out.

Again I want to acknowledge James Sansing, our CE, for his work in getting to the bottom of this, making numerous trips at night to get us back on the air and dealing with all this at the same time as he continues to take care of 8 stations.

And thanks for the well wishes!

P.S. To Diamondtwo, since I know you and have seen you even recently, it's a good thing that you didn't have to try to climb a telephone pole to put a caller on the air...the phone would still be ringing. :)
 
johnr0626 said:
To Diamondtwo, since I know you and have seen you even recently, it's a good thing that you didn't have to try to climb a telephone pole to put a caller on the air...the phone would still be ringing. :)
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As it says in the New Testament, "Low I am with you always." (With appreciation to the late Lewis Grizzard.)
 
You can run all eight operations on three 200-amp services? I would have thought all of that equipment would require a seperate service of 200 amps for each. I may need to let that soak in for a while before I ask any other questions about your plant.
 
Witchlover said:
johnr0626 said:
To Diamondtwo, since I know you and have seen you even recently, it's a good thing that you didn't have to try to climb a telephone pole to put a caller on the air...the phone would still be ringing. :)
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As it says in the New Testament, "Low I am with you always." (With appreciation to the late Lewis Grizzard.)
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Damn brother, don't believe I'da told that!
 
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