As president of Stainless LLC, Don Doty has an unusual—one might say a high-level—perspective on the DTV transition now causing mounting anxiety within the broadcasting industry.

Stainless is one of the few tall-tower erection companies that can send crews up the broadcast towers to perform the structural and antenna work needed to get TV stations ready for the final switch from analog to digital broadcasting by Feb. 18, 2009.

In this interview with TVNEWSDAY, Doty says that if broadcasters act fast, Stainless and the other tower companies could probably meet all their needs over the next 18 months.

But, he also says, his long experience in the business tells him and broadcasters will drag their feet and some will not have the digital signal and coverage they want when it comes time to pull the analog plug.

An edited transcript follows:

There are only about 550 days before broadcasters have to turn off their analog transmitters and go all digital, all the time. What’s going on in your end of the business?

We’re getting increasingly frequent calls from broadcasters who want us to set a placeholder for this upcoming crush of work that we see for next year and in 2009.

Those who get in early will be assured of having a crew when and where they want them. This block of broadcasters won’t have any trouble getting their work done. It’s the broadcasters who wait until spring or summer of ’08 who may be in for a surprise when they find out how challenging it is to get their delivery dates.

So, get your order in now.

That’s it. More people will meet their transition needs if they start developing plans and getting their schedule laid out. We’re already booking projects for next year—next summer, next fall.

Certainly broadcasters that live in the northern part of the United States need to plan. Their window of opportunity is basically from April through September and then they’re hit by weather challenges. You can’t change an antenna in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in February. You’re not going to be able to do it.

What is the nature of the work that has to be done? Is it essentially a case of mounting new antennas or moving antennas from one point to another?

I see broadcasters falling into one of three groups.

One-third of all broadcasters is going to want to go in and move quickly to take off the top-mount [analog] antenna and put up a new [digital] top-mount antenna that’s going to be their full-time digital antenna.

They want the best possible antenna in the best possible location on the tower. The top-mount antenna isn’t affected by the structure so it’s more capable of providing omnidirectional service than a side-mount location.

By and large, most digital antennas that were mounted in a side-mount location are not capable of being mounted on the top of the tower.

The second third is also going to make changes, but they have a reasonably suitable digital antenna system now. It’s not in a top-mount position on the tower, but it’s a side mount with a full-power signal and it’s capable of serving the needs of the community. They’re going to take their time and let the finances determine when the best time to make any changes is.

Group three hasn’t done much of anything. I mean they’ve got what we call a pea shooter that generates a digital signal that just covers their city-grade signal. That’s all they’re doing right now because they don’t see a lot of advertising dollars generated from digital yet.

If they are No. 2 in a market and after the transition they fall to No. 5, they may look and say: "We don’t want to be No. 5 anymore. We need to get a better signal because we’ve lost market share."

Are you normally making structural changes to the tower as you move or install the antennas?

Yes. There are usually structural enhancements that need to be made. A tower’s a lot like a suspension bridge. You can put weight in different locations. You just have to adjust the tower accordingly. So when you pull off a big antenna system, it can create overstresses in the tower. You need to adjust the guy tensions and make other adjustments on the tower to equalize the loading for what’s remaining.

Are you saying that if broadcasters get their orders in with one of the tower companies now, they will all be taken care of by the transition date?

In all honesty, I think we’re probably past that. I don’t think that 700 broadcasters are going to be able to get everything that they want in the next 18 months. I just don’t think that there’s any way for that to happen.

We have more capacity now than there is demand and will have for the next nine to 12 months, but it won’t be used. People won’t take advantage of it, if history is any indication.

So I guess that means that some broadcasters will simply make do with a crummy digital signal come Feb. 18, 2009.

You’re right. They’ll have a crummy signal and there’ll be people in their markets that won’t be able to get them and there’ll be a public outcry: “I can’t even get your signal now. What happened to it?”

And, I’ll tell you, this DTV awareness campaign seems to be taking a long time getting underway. I know it’s supposed to be unfolded next month, but it sure seems to be a long time coming.

I’m not so sure that getting started early with the awareness campaign makes sense either.

Well, that’s true because then people will just forget about it or not pay attention at all. Say what? 2009? Are you kidding? Well, people smarter than me have apparently figured out that that’s the best thing to do, but it still seems that most people don’t understand that their analog television set won’t work after Feb. 17, 2009.

Is this a costly proposition—to get somebody up on your tower and detach your side mount antenna and put a new one up on the top?

The cost is coming down. Antenna manufacturers have figured out ways to make antenna systems robust and powerful and keep the wind loading down, so that’s going to allow changes to be less expensive than they were, say, 15 or 20 years ago.

Can you ballpark it for me? What kind of money are we talking about here?

An antenna and transmission line system is anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000, and you’re going to spend an equal amount for the structural work and installation. Other transmitter and facility enhancements would be on top of that.

Are there particular markets that you see that are in trouble in making the transition date because of community opposition or for whatever reason?

There’s certainly resistance in many markets. Denver had its challenges and they had to go to court to be able to get that approved.

San Francisco was able to get the work done that they needed to get done. Los Angeles was taken care of. Chicago and New York have their own challenges. The Freedom Tower [in New York] keeps getting delayed. Now they’re trying to sets some hard dates. That’s a significant undertaking.

What could go wrong here? I guess if one of these companies had a severe accident that could really mess things up.

Yes. Accidents are difficult for any industry to try to absorb. That could have an impact on deployment.

In the last 12 months alone there were three towers that have been felled, two of them by tornadoes and one of them by a helicopter running into it.

So you figure that we’re going to lose one or two or three a year?

No, not a year. It’s just that we had a rash this past year. We’ll go a couple of years and not have one tower come down.

How do you manage your company though this? You’re going to have a rush in the next year and a half, but then the demand is going to roll off pretty fast.

We’ve laid plans for some growth that we can handle internally and then growth where we can use outsourced services to fill in on a temporary basis. That helps to keep our costs in check. When business picks up, we have some expansion capability and, when it slows down, our costs will go right back down as we cut back on the outsourcing.

We’re looking at our business 18 months out now. A year ago, we’d only look out six months because people weren’t making plans that far in advance.

Now we have a calendar that’s 18-months long and it’s actually extending into ’09. We know that after the transition, broadcasters are going to want to be pull excess weight off of their towers to gain capacity so they can possibly find a home for someone else to go on their towers.

It also gives them a little more of a comfort zone when they have storms come through their area.

We’re also working more closely with other tower erectors and transmitter and antenna manufacturers so we can all work at maximum efficiency and not waste time and effort.

If we know there’s going to be a deal on an antenna system in a certain place, then we’ll make a corresponding adjustment in our delivery for towers or for field service crews.

Would you say broadcasters in general are on the ball when it comes to tower needs?

Some are, but we just know that there’ll be a crush of people that will wait till the last minute. If they do that, they shouldn’t be surprised to find that their costs go up and their schedules may not be met.

So your message for broadcasters is…

Get in line early or run the risk of not being able to get your transition plans implemented before the deadline.