Channel 58 Goes Off The Air But Little Else Is Clear In Station’s Tangled Bankruptcy Dispute

Local fans of Seattle Mariners baseball will miss a few games on Channel 58 when the station goes off the air.

But troubled owner David Derryberry is about to get his television station back.

Channel 58, home of Mariners broadcasts in North Idaho, will go off the air today when the Canfield Mountain transmitter gets shut off.

Last week, federal bankruptcy Judge Alfred Hagan gave Keith Wester, who works on films in Hollywood, the right to get his equipment from the current management at Channel 58. That includes the transmitter.

The shutdown should last about three weeks, said Mike Parkhurst, a former station manager who has worked with Channel 58’s biggest investor to oust the current management.

Wester loaned the editing decks and transmitter to Derryberry when Channel 58, seen locally on cable channel 21, started beaming programming in the area in mid-1994.

In February 1995, a group of investors in the station ousted Derryberry and formed Idaho Broadcast Network, a limited liability company. A week after forming, the company filed for bankruptcy protection.

The bankruptcy has dragged on for a year and a half without resolution. During that time the station has continued to broadcast under a succession of general managers. Bob Rosier of Post Falls has run the station since January.

Rosier could not be reached for comment this week.

He gets free ads for his satellite television business, Astrovision, on Channel 58. He has said he pays the rent and utilities out of his own pocket as the station’s only employee, which he said gives him the right to the free ads.

Parkhurst said the ads added up to $70,000 of free air time over the past year and a half, and is just the beginning of Rosier’s management blunders, Parkhurst said.

Rosier on the other hand has said he’s lost hundreds of thousands of dollars just to keep the station on the air.

Rosier and the Idaho Broadcast Network will soon be out of the picture, Parkhurst said. A court hearing Aug. 23 will decide who owns the Federal Communications Commission license for Channel 58. Rosier and the IBN investors believe Derryberry sold them the license, but Derryberry claims his name was forged on the contract.

FCC records show Derryberry still owns the license. Unlicensed broadcasting is a federal crime punishable with fines and jail time.

“Rosier must have a legal death wish,” Derryberry said in a statement Wednesday, “because if he admits publicly that he is responsible for the station being on the air, and he does not have the legal right to do so since I own the license, then he is confessing to violating federal law.”

Bankruptcy attorneys believe Idaho Broadcast Network’s bankruptcy case will likely be converted to Chapter 7, where the assets are sold to pay creditors. Since Idaho Broadcast Network doesn’t own the transmitter or the editing equipment at the station on Howard Street, there will be very little for creditors - owed hundreds of thousands of dollars - to divide.

The station’s transmitter and editing decks will be serviced and retuned, said Parkhurst, who will become the station’s interim manager while Derryberry and Wester decide what to do next.

, DataTimes