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02/03/2004
Safety & Education Committee Update
It is a changing industry!
Any company in the tower business today will tell you things have changed drastically in the last 2 years. There was a huge up-swing at the end of 1999 and the first part of 2000. Then 2001, 2002 and 2003 were all in a downhill slide.
Consider the different contributing factors that affected our industry. It started with the economy declining, then Wall Street, and finally 9/11 amplified that 10 times. Everyone stopped spending money including the cellular tower business, all business for that matter, and no one was building towers.
On the broadcast side of the industry, after requiring the top 10 markets to go digital, the FCC went easy on the remaining markets giving them extension after extension. All that busy work that was going on in 2000 came to a slow decline and we hope has now hit bottom. The other part of that is the broadcasters that did move forward with their digital conversion and went on the air with low power, which meant less work for the industry.
Usually when the work slows down in the tower business there are a number of new start and low budget companies that will go away. The others struggle along with cut backs and being creative in any way they can to stay busy. In all the years that I have been in this business (approximately 25), it has always come back and usually stronger than when it went into a decline. But in talking to everyone there is a feeling this time will be different.
There are two ways you could look at the future. The towers and the industry are dying and we (the guys) should go sell shoes, or there always will be equipment upgrades, maintenance, and repairs to be made. Cell phone areas still have dead zones to cover, so new small towers will be built. The broadcast towers have 600 broadcasters that need to go digital. You can't build a 2000' tower without always having something that needs to done.
It is said the economy makes a change every 10 years. History shows it stays good for 10 years, then turns down for 2 - 3 years to re-adjust for our happy wallets.
So the message is to hang in there, it will be back and we will be better for it because of our patience.
Pat Moore is a member of the NATE Safety & Education Committee and is the Vice President of Field Services for SpectraSite Broadcast Group of Irving, Texas. He can be reached at 972-550-9500 or pat.moore@spectrasite.com
Pat Moore
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