The Daily Oklahoman from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma • 57

BUSINESS REAL ESTATE JUNE 5, 1994 Cushing Oil Facility Headed Toward Possible Expansion operate 24 hours a day," he said. "Everything out here is controlled from a computer run from the control room," Shires said. At many other crude storage and terminal operations, "if you wanted to move oil from one tank to another or to another facility, they physically have people out there turning valves. Here everything's automated. All of our valves are computer controlled and motor operated," he said.

The Plains operation also was designed to sur-See PLAINS, Page 3-C ramping the business up" at the technologically and environmentally advanced facility, Shires said. At the Cushing interchange, where some other companies' storage tanks are "real old," Shires said, "We're the biggest, newest thing that's been built in a long time, and we have the advantage that we just started and the technology that's available now wasn't available 10 years ago. We're pretty proud of it. "We have a staff right now of 11. We're open 24 hours a day.

You have to be, because the pipelines Shires said. "We have our preliminary design done (for a possible expansion). You have to have that to file (for) your permits," he said. But the expansion and its timing are "not definite," Shires said. "We'll be looking at it between now and year end," he said.

Now, however, "I would be very reluctant to say to the public that, 'Yes, we're going forward with another I hope we do," he said. But such a decision "is really market driven," he said. Meanwhile, "We're still change, the delivery point under oil futures contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange. "We've already filed for our permits for the first expansion, which is another million barrels" of capacity, said Mark Shires, president of Plains Terminal and Transfer, a unit of Houston-based Plains Resources formerly of Oklahoma City. "It's an EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) filing for air quality and it takes about a year to get those permits issued, and we filed for that in January," By Bob Vandewater Staff Writer The newest crude oil storage and terminal facility at the important petroleum transportation hub city of Cushing may have expansion in its future, a company official said last week.

Plains Terminal and Transfer Corp. operates the facility, which costs an estimated $25 million-plus and which became fully operational late last year with its 2 million barrels of crude storage capacity. The terminal also connects with several major oil pipelines at the Cushing petroleum inter The Plains Terminal and Transfer Corp. crude oil storage and terminal facility at Cushing could be expanded if market and economic conditions warrant officials said last week. State 3 1 st in Auto Policy Premiums National Rankings Avg.

Annual Premiums $494 $500 $516 $537 $554 $589 Year 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 ai Latest Figures Available Average Premiums Nationwide (1 992 Figures) 10 Highest 10 Lowest State Avg. Premium State Avg. Premium tively and maintain their vehicles better, said Oklahoma Insurance Commission officials. Also, commission officials try to hold the line on premium rate hikes, requiring insurers to prove they are needed. To do this, insurers must submit detailed calculations proving higher loss trends and related expenses and the subsequent impact on profits.

The data is then reviewed by outside actuaries hired by the commission. Oklahoma is a prior-approval state, meaning insurers must get prior approval before rate hikes. In many states, insurers can put higher rates into effect before they are approved, placing regulators in a catch-up position. Rates did go up a total of 20.1 percent in Oklahoma between 1987 and 1992, or about 4 percent annually. "Only six states had lower increases than Oklahoma during that time," said See RATES, Page 4-C By Stacy Martin Staff Writer So, you think your car insurance premiums are stratospheric? Thank your lucky spark plugs you don't live in New Jersey, where the typical commuterland refugee in 1992 paid a whopping $1,119 yearly to protect old paint.

Oklahomans, by comparison, paid an average of about $590 annually to insure their cars against all risks, such as accidents, theft, bodily injury, fire and hail. In an insurance industry survey released last week, Oklahoma ranked 31st nationally in car insurance costs based on 1992 figures, the latest available. The lowest rate in the nation was found in North Dakota, where drivers paid only $424 annually, according to the the National Association of Independent Insurers. Oklahomans do well because they tend to drive defensively and conserva N. Carolina $541 Arkansas $539 Montana $509 Wyoming $496 Kansas $491 Idaho $490 Iowa $451 Nebraska $450 South Dakota $448 North Dakota $421 New Jersey $1,119 Hawaii $1,099 Washington D.C.

$996 Rhode Island $969 Connecticut $956 Massachusetts $962 New York $.949 California $885- Alaska $843 Louisiana $829 The OWahoman Graphics Source: National Association of Independent Insurers NFL Brings Windfall to City's Fox Affiliate Fox Won't Join Anchor Wars On-Site Physical Trainers Helping Injured Workers By Bob Condor Chicago Tribunt ITASCA, HI. You first notice the workout gear. One guy is wearing a flannel shirt, jeans and construction boots. He is carrying a large travel mug of coffee from spot to spot. An older man is in dark blue short sleeves.

A third guy strolls in, says hello, then changes in a back room. He emerges in cutoff jeans, a denim work shirt and tube socks to the calf. No shoes. But you soon see past the missing Nikes and Ree-boks. This trio is quietly, privately getting the work done.

Each is rehabilitating a major injury, and all are doing it at Door Systems of Itasca, a garage-door installation and service company. The workout room is tucked away upstairs, away from the main floor's sprawling mass of doors, parts and forklifts. It has two training tables, a few weight machines, exercise bikes and a collection of dumbbells. There's also a whirlpool unit, a minitrampoline and a medicine ball. Door Systems hired Bill Frey, a certified athletic trainer, to guide injured employees through rehab.

Frey works five days a week, 6:30 to 10:30 a.m., before going to his afternoon job as a sports team trainer for Oak Park-River Forest High School. That makes Door Systems one of only a handful of American companies that have on-site trainers to help rehabilitate injured workers the most notable success story is a General Motors Corp. plant in Saginaw, Mich. and puts the Itasca outfit in a class with professional sports franchises. Amoco Corp.

is another Chicago-area company with on-site trainers (two of them, plus four interns) who guide employees through orthopedic and cardiac rehab. Amoco makes its program available to the 4,500 employees who work at its downtown headquarters in the Amoco Building. The program started 20 years ago to improve fitness among senior-level executives. In contrast, Door Systems began its relationship with Frey in March 1993 after consulting with Midwest Orthopedics, a Chicago-based sports-medicine firm that was shopping its concept of on-site industrial athletic trainers. Midwest contracts the services of Frey, who attends to 180 Door Systems employees, 120 of whom are service employees and installers.

The program's roots are firmly planted in the desire to control workers compensation claims, but it also has paid dividends of good will. "When someone gets hurt, we don't want him at home isolated and alienated," said Duncan Mathie-son, a co-owner of Door Systems whose father-in-law founded the company in 1954. "He thinks he has no advocate, and he usually gets a lawyer. "Relationships were getting strained. We figured we could get the rehab done here, and the employee would still feel part of the family team.

"Of course, some people aren't buying that. But this is a small business, and we want close relationships with people." Injuries are inevitable for workers who carry heavy doors, wind tight springs, climb 25-foot ladders and drive trucks on their shifts. "The question is, how can I take my knowledge of sports medicine and apply it here?" said Frey. "These guys are like offensive linemen who work in short bursts at 100 percent max (effort). Except an NFL lineman does it for three hours, and these guys do it for eight to 10 hours." Frey works on many shoulders, knees and backs.

The injuries are no surprise to him, because he occasionally goes out on the job with Door Systems employees to observe their workload. "It costs $75 to $100 per rehab session in a typical physical-therapy unit," said Dr. Bernard Bach, director of sports medicine at Midwest Orthopedics. "A major rehab of the knee could cost up to $5,000. Bill Frey Is doing all that work on-site as part of his regular salary," Any savings to date have been balanced by costs of Freyrs Midwest contract and the cost of establishing Soo TRAINER, Pago 2-C INSIDE KOKH'S Fall Sunday Programming Program Total Revenue Movies $200,000 No News Good News at KOKH By Jim Stafford Staff Writer Harlan Reams has a smile on his face when he says "no news is good news." But it's a serious issue for Reams, the president and general manager of the Fox television network's Oklahoma City affiliate, KOKH Channel 25.

He means it. There will be no local news broadcast produced by KOKH, Reams said. Reams said he will not be lured into the news business, no matter how tempting it might be with the impending flood ot new viewers to KOKH when the National Football League makes its Fox network debut this fall. "It's not our bag," Reams said. "There is no rhyme or reason for us to do news." KOKH will be the home for Fox's coverage of the National Football Conference this fall after the upstart network nabbed the broadcast rights from Program Revenue 5 Pre-Season Games $75,000 NFL Regular Season Games $450,000 Weekly Coach's Show; Cowboys Special $85,000 Edition with Jerry Jones Pat Summerall Show FOX Pregame Show Qn oao Other Football Programing w.uuu Season Total (not including $700,000 post-season playoffs) KOKH'S Projected Gains from NFL Programming $500,000 Steve Boaldln, Estimated Revenue The Oklahoman Graphics $348,000.

Another 72 advertising "units" will sell out at approximately $1,350 each. Cha-ching! That's $97,200. There are the coach's shows, the Jerry Jones show and the Summerall show that will add $5,000 per week for 17 weeks. Cha-ching! That's $85,000, There are five preseason prime-time games that will add Cha-ching! another $75,000. Reams plugs in the network's one-hour pre-game show and postseason playoffs, which have yet to be offered to advertisers, and Cha-ching! comes up with a "conservative" total football revenue of almost $700,000 for KOKH.

Last year, programming against NFL football on CBS with a lineup of movies, KOKH's Sunday revenue amounted to about $200,000 during the fall, Reams said. In return for obtaining the Sunday NFL programming, Reams said Fox is asking its affiliate stations to chip in a combined $30 million annually to help pay for packaging. For KOKH, Reams said, that means giving up three prime-time, 30-sec-ond advertising spots, as well as compensation won through a cable retransmission agreement. Anticipating a windfall of nearly $500,000 over last years revenue, it is a grateful Reams who recounts how things fell In place for KOKH. First, he said, Fox went after NFC games, the conference in which tho defending NFL champion Dallas Cowboys play.

"That was great, but then the Cowboys are my home team," Reams said. "So I got 11 of the 18 games of the two-time Su-perbowl defending cham- By Jim Stafford Staff Writer Harlan Reams sits amid the clutter of his desk at the studios of Oklahoma City's Fox television network affiliate, KOKH Channel 25, counting his blessings with a calculator. Fox, the upstart "fourth" TV network ownad by Rupert Murdoch, shook up the sports and entertainment world last December when it won the broadcast rights to National Football League games with a four-year, $1.6 billion offer. With that bid, Fox ended a 38-year association between the NFL and the CBS television network. It is a stunning loss of prestige and revenue for CBS and its affiliates, such as Oklahoma City's KWTV Channel 9.

For a former independent UHF station such as KOKH, the landmark change is a financial windfall. Reams, president and general manager of Heritage Media-owned KOKH, said the station, by late May, had sold 88 percent of its local advertising time for NFL-related shows. That includes time allotments in five preseason games, 29 regular season games, Fox pre-game shows, the weekly Barry Swltzer show, the weekly Cowboys Special Edition hosted by Dallas owner Jerry Jonos, and a Eroposed woekly show osted by network play-by-play announcer Pat Summerall. Reams began crunching the numbers with a calculator as he assessed the potentiul for KOKH this fall: KOKH has sold out 12 full-season advertising "packages" at $29,000 each, Cha-ching! That's Harlan Reams CBS last December witn a four-vear. $1.6 billion bid.

It is a change that promises big revenue gains and a step up in prestige for the once independent UHF station. KOKH's affiliation with Fox and the network's youth-oriented programming has brought it an audience skewed toward the ages of 18 to 34, Reams said. With NFL football, a larger, older audience is certain to find its way up the dial to the UHF station, according to Gerry Hartshorn, director of audience measurement and policy research for the National Association of Broadcasters, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group. The demographics will be ripe for a Fox affiliate such as KOKH to establish a news presence, Hartshorn said. "The profile of someone who watches NFL football Is much closer to the average television news viewer than it is someone who watches Married With Children or The Simpsons," Hartshorn said, referring to two of tho Fox network's most popular shows.

That's not enough to lure KOKH into the news business, Reams said. He is content to leave news to the local affiliates of the "big three" networks, NBC affiliate KFOR Channel 4, ABC affiliate KOCO Chan-Soo REAMS, Pago 2-C KWTV the dominoes all foil in the wrong direction. KWTV general manager David Griffin said the revenue loss for his station will amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. "However, (the loss) will be offset by other types of programming," Griffin said. "I don't want to get real technical, because it's kind of hard to explain.

Those are sports dollars. We Just won't compote for Soo FOX, Pago 2-C pion." It got even better for KOKH when a certain former University of Oklahoma football coach stormed into Dallas to take over as head coach of the Cowboys. "Barry Swltzer bo-comes coach, and then (ex-Cowboys coach) Jimmy Johnson bocomos an analyst on Fox," Reams said. "It's liko nothing more could have happened that could have been any better." Of courso, over at 5-C 4-C 12-C Almanac Malcolm Berko Briefs Livestock Markets Oil, Gas Real Estate.