A veteran broadcast radio station licensee has received a formal warning from the FCC that the single tower housing the transmitter of a Class B AM radio station that once served the Delmarva Peninsula east of Washington, D.C., is not up to snuff with Commission rules.
If the tower isn’t painted and doesn’t resolve its lighting deficiencies, Sima Birach could be handed a fine.
This would be an added headache for Birach, as the station suffered a devastating fire in August 2022.
Birach Broadcasting Corporation is the licensee of WGOP-AM 540 in Pocomoke City, Md., licensed to serve the Salisbury area in addition to Chicoteague, Va., and Ocean City, Md., with 500 watts during daylight hours and 243 watts at night.
On September 30 and December 28, 2022, an agent from the FCC Enforcement Bureau’s Columbia, Md., office, paid a visit to the WGOP tower. What did the agent observe?
The structure requires painting and red obstruction lighting during the nighttime that
includes a top-level beacon and two mid-level steady burning side markers at the 1/3 and
2/3 levels.
At the time of inspection, which was after sunset and before dawn, an agent observed that the obstruction lighting was completely extinguished. This triggered the Notice of Violation — a warning that comes prior to any possible Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture from the Commission.
At the time of inspection, an agent observed that the paint on the WGOP tower “was severely faded and flaking and did not maintain good visibility.”
The biggest issue facing Birach Broadcasting is that the WGOP owner never contacted the Federal Aviation Administration [FAA] regarding the lighting outage.
Birach also did not respond to an FCC agent’s October 27, 2022, attempt to reach the company about the lighting outage. As of February 2, 2023, Birach had not repaired the tower’s lighting deficiencies.
But, what is not noted in the Notice of Violation is that the Enforcement Bureau’s visit came following the mid-August 2022 blaze that rendered WGOP’s broadcast facilities inoperable. That incident also silenced FM translator W293DN.
While the fire was determined to be accidental, Birach did not have insurance.
At the time of the fire, WGOP had been operated under a Lease Management Agreement by Mike Powell. Pending approval from the FCC’s Media Bureau, WGOP will soon become the property of The Waters Group. In April 2023, Birach agreed to sell the AM and W293DN at 106.5 MHz in Pocomoke City for $200,000. Terms of the deal called for WGOP’s reconstruction.
Key to that agreement is a Time Brokerage Agreement allowing Waters to assume operations of WGOP before the deal is to close. For that to happen, Waters agreed to pay Birach $1,000 a month for the ability to turn the lights on at a new home.
Waters, and the FCC, may now be wondering what Birach has done with that money, and if a TBA will be coming at all some five months after the station’s sale was announced.
The Waters Group is led by Roger Waters, and is based in Waldorf, Md. Waters, who is African American, notes on his LinkedIn profile that he possesses “a demonstrated history of working in the investment management industry.” For more than 17 years, he has been associated with Maryland General Hospital as a senior bio-med specialist in medical electronics.
Issuing the NOV is Dave Dombrowski, Region One Regional Director within the Enforcement Bureau.
