Situation

A leading media conglomerate had 39 months to move its over 30 television stations to newly assigned spectrum. The move, designed by the FCC to pave the way for 5G mobile services, was mission critical: stations across the industry were required to hit a series of ten deadlines or immediately go off the air.

This $70M+ effort required modifying facilities, replacing equipment and running tests on an accelerated timeline at each site. Leadership sought a trusted partner to manage this crucial transition.

Solution

We brought the program and project management expertise to successfully manage a transition of this scale and complexity:

• Drove, coordinated and monitored the dozens of industry-leading resources engaged in the transition

• Led the collaboration and coordination between general contractors, broadcast engineers, property lessors, lawyers, regulatory bodies, procurement specialists and internal resources

• Ensured successful on-time delivery by knowing when to rely on and defer to our vendors and stakeholders, and by focusing the project on their success

• Created a dashboard tool that provided at-a-glance visuals of the project's health to keep everyone informed and focused on the critical path to meeting the nine phased deadlines

Results

• Positioned the company to hit all transition dates across its over 30 station work streams

• Transitioned several markets years ahead of schedule, resulting in collection of $1.5 million in incentive payments from mobile providers

• Brought industry best practices to boost efficiency at each site

• Equipped internal stakeholders with new project management capabilities and customizable tools to utilize on future projects

• Upheld the company’s sterling reputation within the industry and with the FCC