Posted by Paul Rusling on May 3, 2008, 1:18 am, in reply to "Re: Musicmann 279"
87.102.123.71
Its a sensible question that deserves an answer. We (IMIB) did speak to several transmission providers, including Merlin, NTL & Crtown Castle, who were all interested in building and operating a transmission facility for us. These operators recoup their costs from rentals, and expect to get their investment costs back in 22 months, and every 22 months afterwards. Clearly we would be better off providing it ourselves. Its a bigger sum to start than leasing, but but in the long run (longer than 2 years) you are quids in by owning your own plant. We had some pretty asture financial guys aver gthis much. Leasing would have been very short sighted and sapped huge chunks of revenue.
The Communications Commission did not have any expertise with, nor any suitable site of such kit readily available. Also, it would have needed Tynwald approval for them to spend the money necessary to build the station. They could not simply buy a cheap LW transmitter and cobble an aerial together, and like everyone one else they costed the exercise at £3M worth of Capital Expenditure for a terrestrial installation. Somewhat more expensive at sea.
We could do it much cheaper ourselves and have the profit from transmission costs remain in house for our own shareholders.
Putting a few low power FM transmitters onto existing masts costs a few thousand pounds. I just did some work on a new high power AM station for a quasi government body in the middle east - it cost $8.3m US in total. And the land came free! You cannot do high power AM on a shoestring. There are more components than a transmitter and a single generator if you are going to do it properly. And the IMIB intention when I was there was to be a professional operation, not a bodge outfit. There are also a raft of rules and regulations to be adhered to - it all costs serious money these days. In the 1970s we were somewhat gung ho and ignored the myriad of regs (most of the people I worked with had never even heard of them!)
This isn't 1964 and its NOT a Panamanian flag - the rules appertaining to the platform were the same as those governing a UK Oil Production Platform, meaning a £3m cost for that alone. A lower power boat was to be to 'prove' the viability and P value of the station to convince the investors to stump up the millions to do it properly. Investors WILL stump up that much money, but they want to see a good team, a sound business plan and they want a big chunk of the action. The latter was the stumbling block, and now I understand that IMIB doesn't any longer have the first two essentials - so its gonna take a big effort to resurrect.
The IOM Government COULD afford to build the transmission facility, but it would mean a huge political battle in Tynwald; we always thought it would be quicker to get on and raise the funds in the market. The big barrier was simply a refusal by some of my former IMIB colleagues to give away sufficient equity in exchange for the investment.
(Sybil, sorry this is so lengthy, I thought Chris would want us to set things out for your guests on here. That Chris was prepared to try and short cut so much, and get things moving quickly, just illustrates what a terrier and a visionary he was. )
Hope that fills in some of the gaps.
Paul
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