Sky Television sues over toppled tower

The parent company of WSKY-TV (Channel 4) has sued the builder of a tower that toppled in high winds in Camden County, N.C., in March, saying its work was shoddy from start to finish.

The suit, filed late last week in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, reads like a business version of a homeowner’s lament against a sloppy contractor.

Sky Television LLC recounts a litany of shortcomings it says were committed by Tower Innovations, based in Newburgh, Ind. Among them:

nIt forgot to order guy wires, triggering a two-month delay.

nTower Innovations provided “virtually no on-site oversight or construction management and supervision” for its subcontractors.

nThe tower was months behind schedule and still wasn’t done when it toppled.

The suit also names A.B. Chance, a subsidiary of Hubbell Inc. of Orange, Conn., contending Chance manufactured a flawed key component – the anchors intended to secure the tower’s foundation.

The foundation, however, “was woefully inadequate to provide even a fraction of the resistance necessary to hold the 300,000-pound tower erect in modest winds, let alone under hurricane-force wind loads,” the suit says .

“As a group, we’re not hard to get along with,” WSKY’s president and managing partner, Glenn Holterhaus, said Tuesday. “It’s just been incredibly frustrating.”

Officials with Tower Innovations and Hubbell did not return calls Tuesday.

WSKY, which is not affiliated with a major television network, is based in the Greenbrier section of Chesapeake, but its city of license is Manteo, N.C. The station, founded in 2001, broadcasts to Hampton Roads and northern North Carolina.

WSKY initially broadcast from an analog tower in Powells Point in Currituck County, N.C. Seeking to move into digital broadcasting, it won approval from the Federal Communications Commission to relocate its antenna to South Mills in Camden County and signed a contract with Tower Innovations in June 2006.

“Virtually from the outset of pre-construction activities,” the suit contends , “TI failed to perform its responsibilities in a timely manner.”

The company assured the station the new tower would be done by November 2006, so WSKY let its lease for the Powells Point tower run out then. The tower still wasn’t finished. That didn’t affect cable or satellite customers. But WSKY’s customers who relied on traditional antennas – about 20 percent of its market – lost service, the suit says .

In March this year, the tower, still not done, toppled in strong winds. It crashed through a new transmitter building, missing the transmitter itself by 3 feet, Holterhaus said, but damaging other equipment. Service continued for cable and satellite customers.

WSKY’s problems with Tower Innovations didn’t end there, the suit says .

Tower Innovations agreed to build a replacement. But in September, after the foundations were completed, a subcontractor told the station that it could not afford to rent a crane to continue the job because Tower Innovations owed the subcontractor more than $270,000 for past work, the suit says .

In October, the suit says , an attorney for Tower Innovations informed WSKY that it would drop out of the project. The tower was finished last month by one of Tower Innovations’

subcontractors, Holterhaus said.

Tower Innovations never reimbursed the station for the cost of replacing the transmitter building and equipment, Holterhaus said. WSKY is seeking more than $50 million from Tower Innovations and A.B. Chance.

Holterhaus said he is working on an article for an industry magazine on “10 things I would have done differently in building a tower.”

“Right now, I’m up to 23,” he said.

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com