[BC] Legal ID Question

[Mike McCarthy]

I wouldn't call it a raid. As far as I was told by the people there, they 
were inspected as usual. The question posed was "By what authority do you 
have to operate this antenna?"  Plug pulled...simple as that.  I don't 
recall if there were any other citations or violations noted.  The stations 
were fairly legal otherwise....much to the chagrin of the managing partner 
who didn't want to spend much money on anything, let alone be legal.  I 
buried so much stuff in my bills for keeping them legal that when the 
primary investor called asking about what happened, he quickly understood 
the problems were not at the station level and that misleading operating 
management in that way was warranted so as to protect them as much as 
practical.

The primary investor is a pretty good guy.  It's unfortunate he got into 
business with the managing partner who made all the day to day 
decisions.  They ended up losing about $4M between all the stations in the 
company.  The two local stations were bought for $3.2M (in 1989) and sold 
for less than 1/2 that 4 years later...split up.  The company was 
liquidated and the senior debt holders only got 30% on their investment. 
The rest were all SOL.  I lost about $2800 in the whole mess....but it 
could have been worse....far worse.

MM

At 11:33 AM 8/28/2006 -0400, Dan Kelley wrote
>Wow....I didn't know you were connected to that one.  Was there
>really a "raid" as it was made out to be?
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net
>[mailto:broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of Mike McCarthy
>Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 4:40 PM
>To: Broadcasters' Mailing List
>Subject: RE: [BC] Legal ID Question
>
>I could write a volume on all the legal problems that ownership had with
>all it's stations.  It was not the highest point in my career.  I left
>there two weeks before they got inspected and shut down. Turns out, the FCC
>became suspicious after another two licensees filed complaints about the
>coverage the station had to the east.  The FCC knew I was working towards
>fixing the issues there, and when I left they decided that it appeared the
>owner needed a kick in the head (which was exactly what the managing
>partner needed).
>
>What made the timing so bad was the antenna which was supposed to have been
>up there had been ordered months earlier and in pattern test at that time.
>
>That's some of the facts which got very much overlooked in the micro
>analysis of the whole thing by surrounding stations and the media trades.
>
>MM
>
>At 03:50 PM 8/27/2006 -0400, Dan Kelley wrote
> > >Yes, there has been.  WCFL, Morris, IL. was cited about 15 years ago
> > >because it ran it's legal in the 55 break and then ran the famous
> > >WCFL-Chicago jingle at the top of the hour.  Since there, I know of
>several
> >
> > >warning letters written to stations which practiced the same.
> >
> >I>t's clearly not legal and why stations run them is clearly beyond
> > >me.  Many very large and public companies do that and with impunity.
> >
> > >MM
> >
> >Not to get off topic, but I recall that same station having some other
> >FCC issues concerning power and directional antenna issues that forced
> >them off the air for a brief period of time...
> >
> >dan in lansing
> >
> >
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