Feeling Cursed? Here's The Reason Why.

Call it the curse of Frank Conrad.

Things were going great for TV broadcasting in early 2007. With private equity money backed by plentiful credit pouring into the business, stations prices shot up and the stock of publicly held companies like LIN, Hearst-Argyle, Sinclair and Nexstar soared with them.

Then in early summer, it all suddenly went to pieces. Credit dried up. Buyers willing to pay traditional fat multiples disappeared. The station trading market froze.

You know the rest of the story. The economy plunged into the Great Recession. As a business almost totally dependent on advertising, TV broadcasting felt its full force. In 2009, revenue at TV stations plunged at speeds that no one thought was possible, to levels that sent some groups into bankruptcy and others to the brink.

At the same time, new and strange forms of media competed feverishly for viewer attention and whatever ad dollars were still out there. Every time the broadcasters thought they had them cornered, new, even more perplexing and elusive types would evolve.

Revenue has rebounded nicely this year, thanks in large part to $2.5-$3 billion in political spending. But next year is uncertain. Nobody can say if broadcasting will ever fully recover what it lost.

So, why has all this misery descended upon broadcasting?

You can talk about the collapse of the housing and financial markets and the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler. But if you ask me, it’s the curse of Frank Conrad.

Conrad was the Pittsburgh engineer and tinkerer who, with an assist from his bosses at Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing, pioneered commercial broadcasting in the second decade of the last century. In the fall of 1920, he put KDKA on the air and on Nov. 2 the station broadcast the results of the Harding-Cox election.

Others, most notably WWJ Detroit, lay claim to being first, but it was really Conrad and Westinghouse that made a business out of a hobby by selling radio receivers to those interested in hearing Conrad’s broadcasts of phonograph records. It was only later that they and others discovered they could sell time to advertisers.

But why this curse? Why has Conrad turned on the industry he founded?

Neglect.

Conrad did his experiments in radio in a two-story garage behind his house in Wilkinsburg, Pa., a close-in Pittsburgh suburb. It was from here that he entertained others with homemade receivers with his broadcasts.

In 2001, despite outcries from local preservationists and what I thought was a persuasive column by me in Broadcasting & Cable, his house and garage were cleared to make way for a Wendy’s.

That’s right. The birthplace of broadcasting is now a fast foodt outlet without even a plaque to commemorate the man and all that he accomplished.

But Conrad, who died and entered the ether in 1941, let that indignity pass.

What he apparently could not tolerate, even in his very dead state, is what happened in the summer of 2007. Contractors razed the so-called K Building in East Pittsburgh, the site of the original KDKA transmitter and studio.

Did you catch the timing of that? The summer of 2007, the same time the business started falling to pieces. A coincidence? I think not. Broadcasting hasn’t been the same since.

I am no expert on the supernatural, but it’s my feeling that if over-the-air TV and radio are going to make a full recovery, broadcasters are going to have to make things right with Conrad.

The Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters helped by finally inducting Conrad into its Hall of Fame this year.

But what’s really needed is to save the Conrad garage. Before it was destroyed by bulldozers, Pittsburgh preservationist Rick Harris, who has devoted years to this project, had the garage disassembled brick by brick and stored in a warehouse. That was made possible by a $50,000 contribution from Ralph Guild, the former radio rep.

It’s a cool garage, big enough for a small broadcasting museum. It now needs a fitting home, preferably somewhere in Pittsburgh, and the money for the reconstruction.

Harris has a more immediate problem. He’s running out of money to store the garage and a bunch of other artifacts he’s collected over the years. He needs another $5,268 just to keep it all on ice for another year.

I believe that it would also help if the broadcasting industry would somehow recognize the 90^th anniversary of the first KDKA broadcast, its own birthday, when it rolls around on Nov. 2. Significantly, Election Day this year falls on the same day.

With the date less than two months off, I’m not sure what can be done. Maybe it’s just better to stay focused on restoring the garage so that when the 100^th anniversary of the business rolls around, there will be someplace to go for the ceremony.