The FCC recently approved Special Temporary Authority requests from Birach Broadcasting Corporation, to allow WBVA-AM in Bayside and WVAB-AM in Virginia Beach to return to air from a temporary site.
Birach told the FCC, it continues to struggle financially. Birach received several engineering STAs over the years and the stations have sporadically been on and off the air, judging by Inside Towers’ examination of the FCC’s station ownership database. Birach recently asked the agency for another STA identical to the one approved last year, so it can operate from a temporary tower of 12 meters AGL and transmit 0.03 kW day/night.
Its problems began in 2008, when vandals cut the guy wires to the tower that served both stations and it collapsed. “The site owner was unwilling to allow the tower to be reconstructed,” Birach told the Commission. The tower owner is a “little league association, which operates a casino at that site,” Birach told the agency in 2009. Now, the station owner says it continues to struggle with local zoning to get approval for a short tower for diplex use with co-owned WVAB.
Birach calls the zoning issues it has faced “a complete nightmare.” The broadcaster says it’s spent “tens of thousands of dollars” on engineering and legal fees and has been trying to find a new site for the stations.
Birach plans to donate the two AMs to the Multicultural, Media, Telecom and Internet Council, which would then try to find a new operator for the stations, Inside Radio recently reported.
May 4, 2018
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