在北京的中国人怎么这么笨！

GALVESTON — China Radio International bought “a pig in a poke” when it leased a Galveston radio station in January that network officials mistakenly believed broadcast to the Houston market, according to a former China Radio International employee.

“It was the dumbest thing they could have ever done,” said Mark Shorey, a consultant at CRI headquarters in Beijing before his resignation last month . “CRI believes that they are broadcasting in Houston and continue to announce this fact on the air and on their Web site.”

Shorey, who has 20 years of experience in radio, said he resigned from CRI, which is run by the Chinese government, Feb. 12 over a policy dispute after five months at the network. He declined to discuss the nature of the dispute.

Attempts to reach CRI officials in Beijing and CRI's Washington bureau were unsuccessful.

Galveston's KGBC-AM 1540 began broadcasting CRI programing New Year's Eve, much to the surprise of station staff.

It is the first U.S. station to broadcast CRI programing 24 hours a day, although the network has purchased blocks of time on U.S. stations at least since 1993.

Glenn Richards, former KGBC morning show producer, said the station's signal was strong as far as the 610 Loop.

But George Lee, whose Electric Theater Radio Hour was taken off the air to make room for CRI, said that if a listener is driving from Galveston toward Houston, the signal will usually start to fade near Santa Fe.

“It's a small market station, and it was never intended from the day it was built to broadcast to Houston,” Lee said. “On some nights, if all the planets are in alignment and the weather conditions are just right, you may be able to pick it up in Houston.”

Interviewed by telephone from London, Shorey said the two top managers in the English division of CRI told him they were convinced that KGBC was broadcasting to the Houston market. They refused to believe him when he showed them a Federal Communications Commission map showing that KGBC's signal did not cover Houston, he said.

“I found that CRI was sold a pig in a poke by a Chinese-American media mogul from California,” Shorey said.

Shorey said he was unable to learn the name of the businessman or the company negotiating for CRI with station owner Gabriel Arango, president of Siga Broadcasting Corp.

Arango said in a Jan. 6 interview that he had signed a letter of intent for a five-year lease with a well-known California broadcaster, which he now says is Pacific Media International.

He declined to discuss the deal because negotiations are still under way.

Pacific Media International officials could not be reached for comment.

Arango, whose Siga Broadcasting owns five other Texas radio stations, said KGBC is officially listed by the FCC as a Galveston-Houston station but in reality does not cover the Houston market.

“It's not really viable at this point,” Arango said about KGBC reaching Houston. He said he is considering making the changes necessary to reach Houston.

The station was upgraded from 1,000 watts to 2,500 watts of broadcast power when Arango purchased it in 2002, Richards said, and the station has had problems reaching full power at times.

harvey.rice@chron.com