Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois · Page 740

Ghosts 72 tcnnas atop the newly completed Hancock. They were followed in April, 1970, by channel 44. Even WCFL's channel 38, which had no immediate plans then, as it has none now, of going into operation, rented a spot there. From their altitude of 1,456 feet, or 350 feet above the roof of the Hancock, the stations could look down upon 900-foot-high channel 7, which had moved to Marina Towers from the Kemper Building in 1965; upon 640-foot-high public television channels H and 20, which were managing to beam beautiful, unobstructed pictures of Bert and Ernie and Julia Child to the growing population of alewives in Lake Michigan from atop 1000 N. Lake Shore Dr.; upon 640-foot-high channel 26, whose signal barely managed to escape from the concrete canyons surrounding its transmitter and antenna on the Board of Trade Building. Even as the Hancock stations were enjoying their signal supremacy, forces were at work to destroy it. Bruce Graham, the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architect who had designed the imaginative, windswept Hancock Center, was at work on a taller building for Sears, Roebuck. At 1 .450 feet, 1 10 stories, it was to be, in fact, the tallest building in the world. Plans for the Sears Tower were announced in July of 1970. In the commotion that followed, we have seen engineering huddles, executive huddles, proposals, counterproposals, lawsuits, a petition to the FCC, a petition to the FAA, a rain of press releases, and a flood of money spent for studying The Problem, which was, briefly: How badly will the Sears Tower interfere with our television reception? It was assumed that it would contribute, along with the new First National Bank and the Standard Oil Building, to ghosting on low-placed channels 7, 11, 20, and 26. But the Sears would also cause some interference with reception from the stations which had just spent $1.5 million apiece to go atop the Hancock. Proposed solutions included turning the top of the Sears Tower counterclockwise so that bounced signals would fall into Lake Michigan; rasing the Hancock so it would be level with the Sears; installing relay antennas on the Sears Tower so that signals transmitted from the Hancock on, say, channel 5, could be picked up by the relay antennas and sent out clearly again over a vacant UHF channel; and coating the top of the Sears Tower with a supposedly signal-absorbent material called Avram. Another obvious solution was to move all broadcast antennas to the Sears Tower, a solution which entailed petitioning the Federal Aviation Administration for permission since the structure had been designed to reach to the very limit of FAA height regulations. Despite vehement opposition by the Hancock broadcasters, who groaned at the prospect of spending millions for another move, Sears announced in April, 1972, that it would go with a petition to the FAA and acoatingof Avram. The Avram later was abandoned as ineffective, but the petition was granted in June of that year. The giant retailer then announced it would reinforce its building at a cost of $2 million so that the celebrated tower would not topple into the streets some windy eve while Howard Cosell was in midprattle. Channel 7, which had hoped to move to the tower ever since the building first was announced, signed on immediately. Public TV channels 11 and 20, which had come close to moving to the Hancock but which were saved by their own lethargy, also announced for Sears. Channel 26 said it was interested. For the Hancock channels, the procedure at last became clear-cut: They had to find out how much the proposed move to Sears would cost and whether their pictures were being so badly affected as to warrant the expenditure. Several studies, more than $55,000, and some months later early this fall, to be exact the results came in. A feasibility study by RCA suggested it would cost the Hancock broadcasters a painful minimum of $2.5 million apiece to move to the Sears Tower. On the other hand, a study by the Washington engineering consultant firm of Jules Cohen indicated that the switch would not significantly improve reception. In late October, after due considera- Master antenna systems sometimes cause more problems than they solve. tion by all parties concerned, the heads of the Hancock stations told Sears officials thanks a lot but no thanks, they would stay on not-so-Big John. The Cohen study, which was half-financed by Sears, showed that of the Hancock stations, channels 2 and 5 had about the same number of moderately intolerable ghosts. Channel 9 had more serious ghosts but fewer of them, and UHF channels 32 and 44 were hardly affected at all. None of the stations showed anything approaching the saturation of interference expected. Said channel 32's chief engineer. Bill Kusack: "We're beginning to find out that the ghosts are really 'fingers' not solid areas. Yourcould have terrible ghosting in one home and move across the street and the problem would right itself." Thebottom line, as the broadcasters are fond of saying, was that only seven-tenths of one per cent of Chicago's viewers were suffering significant interference from the Sears Tower. "There are legitimate questions here," said one station head when asked'what becomes of the seven-tenths, "of where the obligations of a broadcast entity are, since it is, after all, free TV." Moreover, the stations had become convinced by the small number of viewer complaints and by the fact that channel 7, with the worst reception problems in the city, was still maintaining the highest overall rating, that viewers were apathetic about their reception. Explained Kusack: "I believe that a person psychologically begins to factor it (interference) out." Reinforcing the stations' decision was their 20-year rental agreement with the Hancock, including an option to terminate in 1979), which costs them a total of $123,240 annually. A settlement on that contract would not come cheap. Finally, they argued, there is no guarantee that upon moving to Sears, another, taller building won't loom upon the scene. 7 A Chicago Tribune Magazine