A battle is brewing out at WABG-AM radio, the tiny station out on Money Road, between the station’s general manager, a Louisiana engineering firm and a competing radio network.
James Poe, the general manager, has been out of the country in Japan since January, running the station remotely with sporadic periods of time off-air and low-quality on-air broadcasts of recorded material in between.
During that time, according to Poe, two members of Delta Radio Network, John Miller and Ryan Hookland, have made an attempt through an attorney to purchase the station for $10,000.
Poe asserts that price deeply undervalues the station, that the station is not for sale, and further, that Miller and Hookland, through the CEO of Delta Radio Network, Larry Fuss, received an engineering firm’s evaluation of problems at WABG that should have been for his ears only.
From Japan by email late last week, Poe described the situation as an underhanded attempt by a competitor to seize his station in his absence.
Though Miller and Hookland made the offer on WABG through Cleveland attorney Arthur Calderon in a letter addressed to Bill Luckett of Clarksdale, Poe accuses Fuss of being behind the attempt to take over WABG.
Fuss denied that accusation.
“He thinks it’s me, but it’s not me,” Fuss said. “Poe’s got an active imagination. He has been in violation of many FCC (Federal Communications Commission) requirements for a long time, and now that they’re catching up with him, he wants to blame it on me.”
It is not clear whether Poe is the sole owner of the station, as he describes himself. One comment from Mike Patton & Associates, a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, engineering firm hired by Poe to conduct an evaluation of the station, said that according to the FCC’s database, WABG is listed as SPB, LLC with three equal members, “none of whom are James Poe.”
Poe said in a subsequent email, “I like ownership because I can do radio the way I think radio should be done.”
He acknowledges his ways depart from currently accepted practices, but argues that his approach is more genuinely local than others and provides a service through its programming that other stations do not.
Email exchanges between Poe and Calderon; Poe and Mike Patton; and Poe and Fuss indicate many technical problems at the station and disagreements about what prompted the attempt to purchase the station.
Patton, in a Jan. 24 email, denied discussing the station with anyone, saying “anyone with eyes and web access could easily determine that your station is in violation of several (FCC) rules, to wit: your tower lights are out, and you don’t have authority to be off-air from the FCC, just to name two obvious ones.”
Patton’s entire evaluation includes a vast number of technical problems that need to be corrected at the station.
Patton acknowledged in the email that many small AM stations are struggling to stay alive and that he understands meeting FCC requirements often takes a back seat to staying on the air.
Poe defended himself and the station in an exchange with Patton, saying he invested his life savings in the station 10 years ago, inherited numerous fines from the FCC that he has been paying, and that he is aware of FCC rules and where WABG is out of compliance.
FCC violations, he said in that email, are between him and the commission and nobody else’s business.
Fuss and Poe have a long history, dating back to Poe’s first entry into the Delta radio market. Over the last decade, Delta Radio Network has bought and sold numerous Delta stations. It currently owns KIX 92.7 in Greenwood and eight other stations in the Delta.
Poe said in a Friday email that he is cutting his time in Japan short to return to the states and resolve problems with WABG.
•Contact Kathryn Eastburn at 581-7235 or keastburn@gwcommonwealth.com.
