TV Technology magazine recently published an interview with P. Harris Morris, the new head of the Harris Broadcast & Communications business unit.
In the interview with TV Tech, Morris talks about the broadcast business, gives an overview of company’s NAB plans and discusses their interoperability labs in the US, Canada and the UK.
Most interesting to me is that towards the end of the interview when the subject turns towards mobile DTV, Morris reveals that the company has “delivered more than 45 systems nationwide already and, at the upcoming Washington, D.C., Mobile Consumer Showcase, our systems will be used in at least six of the eight over-the-air broadcast stations.”
Morris then goes on to say that he “wouldn’t be surprised to see 100 to 150 more stations roll out mobile capabilities during the next year.”
As I said in January just after returning from CES, and more recently while being interviewed by Harry Jessell, the market hype may be about 3D, but for US broadcasters and the vendors that sell to them, there’s much more action in mobile. It looks like Harris is one of the companies that’s taking advantage of this trend and turning it into significant revenue.
I’ve been told by broadcasters that the incremental cost of enabling mobile DTV broadcasting (for a station that has already made the switch to DTV) is about $150,000 per station. Thus the numbers in the TV Technology interview with Mr. Morris indicate that Harris has already brought in revenue of ~$6.75m from mobile DTV; and the company has the potential to sell an additional $15m – $22.5m worth of this technology over the next year. Even if the $150K per station estimate is high, there is still good money here for Harris and the other companies who are targeting this space.