Name Change for Sears Tower?

By
published

Residents of neighborhoods near Sutro Tower in San Francisco and around the new broadcast tower on Lookout Mountain in Colorado may not appreciate the beauty of these structures, but the news last week that the Sears Tower may become the Willis Tower has met with strong opposition from many residents of Chicago. They see the tower, with its twin masts on top supporting antennas for most of Chicago's TV broadcasters, as a landmark and object to the name change.

Willis Group is leasing 140,000 square feet of space in the building and will have naming rights to the tower.

While the official name may change to Willis Tower, I suspect most of the engineers working on transmitters in the building will continue to call it the "Sears" Tower, as will many long-time Chicago residents.

Doug Lung
Doug Lung

Doug Lung is one of America's foremost authorities on broadcast RF technology. As vice president of Broadcast Technology for NBCUniversal Local, H. Douglas Lung leads NBC and Telemundo-owned stations’ RF and transmission affairs, including microwave, radars, satellite uplinks, and FCC technical filings. Beginning his career in 1976 at KSCI in Los Angeles, Lung has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast television engineering. Beginning in 1985, he led the engineering department for what was to become the Telemundo network and station group, assisting in the design, construction and installation of the company’s broadcast and cable facilities. Other projects include work on the launch of Hawaii’s first UHF TV station, the rollout and testing of the ATSC mobile-handheld standard, and software development related to the incentive auction TV spectrum repack. A longtime columnist for TV Technology, Doug is also a regular contributor to IEEE Broadcast Technology. He is the recipient of the 2023 NAB Television Engineering Award. He also received a Tech Leadership Award from TV Tech publisher Future plc in 2021 and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.