-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
naming brand rights KTWV and KWVE?
- Thread starter 34james
- Start date
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
A possible reason:
KTWV actually did not acquire its permanent call letters until nine months after the format began (it operated with the calls KTMV-FM when it signed on Valentine's Day 1987 and got the KTWV calls November 20, according to CDBS).
While Calvary Chapel's KWVE had been using those calls since it first went on the air in 1971 with a soft rock format in the daytime and harder rock in the evening (the church acquired it in 1985), they never copyrighted the "K-Wave" trademark in the approximately two years in-between. That, plus the fact that there is very little likelihood that a court could be convinced that a secular contemporary music station could be confused in listeners' minds with one that broadcast Christian music and teaching, likely made Calvary decide not to pursue legal action in which, if they lost, they would probably have ended up paying Metropolitan Broadcasting's legal fees in addition to their own.
I am told by people who were at 94.7 at the time of the 1987 format change that Metropolitan did make overtures to Calvary to get the KWVE calls for themselves and when that effort failed they then approached the station with the KTWV calls and offered them money to switch. However, since the 1980s was the period of time when the FCC was switching from paper records to computer databases, I'm not able to properly research what station had the KTWV calls pre-1987.
So I label that a "possible" explanation because of the lack of documentation of what are otherwise anecdotal factoids.
KTWV actually did not acquire its permanent call letters until nine months after the format began (it operated with the calls KTMV-FM when it signed on Valentine's Day 1987 and got the KTWV calls November 20, according to CDBS).
While Calvary Chapel's KWVE had been using those calls since it first went on the air in 1971 with a soft rock format in the daytime and harder rock in the evening (the church acquired it in 1985), they never copyrighted the "K-Wave" trademark in the approximately two years in-between. That, plus the fact that there is very little likelihood that a court could be convinced that a secular contemporary music station could be confused in listeners' minds with one that broadcast Christian music and teaching, likely made Calvary decide not to pursue legal action in which, if they lost, they would probably have ended up paying Metropolitan Broadcasting's legal fees in addition to their own.
I am told by people who were at 94.7 at the time of the 1987 format change that Metropolitan did make overtures to Calvary to get the KWVE calls for themselves and when that effort failed they then approached the station with the KTWV calls and offered them money to switch. However, since the 1980s was the period of time when the FCC was switching from paper records to computer databases, I'm not able to properly research what station had the KTWV calls pre-1987.
So I label that a "possible" explanation because of the lack of documentation of what are otherwise anecdotal factoids.
KMR:
CDBS got it wrong. It was KTWV, Los Angeles from the moment of the flip at 12 noon on Valentine's Day, 1987. Howard Bloom hisownself did the ID. Here's audio: http://formatchange.com/kmet-becomes-smooth-jazz-94-7-the-wave-ktwv/
KWVE 107.9 was known as "The Wave of Living Water", when I worked there in the late 80's and early 90's.
Their studios were located in San Clemente on El Camino Real back then, but have since relocated to CCCM I believe.
http://kwve.com/
Was a fun little place to work for back then. Music on carts and some CD's, reel to reel machines, turntable. Nice boss and PD to work for. Heck we even took phone requests and played music without a playlist. As long as we didn't repeat the songs in our six hour shifts, we were ok. Typical board op positions, some live mic, weather, so forth.
See KM Richards, a little radio knowledge goes a long way...
Their studios were located in San Clemente on El Camino Real back then, but have since relocated to CCCM I believe.
http://kwve.com/
Was a fun little place to work for back then. Music on carts and some CD's, reel to reel machines, turntable. Nice boss and PD to work for. Heck we even took phone requests and played music without a playlist. As long as we didn't repeat the songs in our six hour shifts, we were ok. Typical board op positions, some live mic, weather, so forth.
See KM Richards, a little radio knowledge goes a long way...
Yet no one would possibly confuse a professional wrestlng promotion with a wildlife protection organization, yet a court ruled that the World Wrestling Federation had to change its initials, and consequently its very name, so that the only WWF would be the World Wildlife Fund.
Who has airchecks of Jed The Fish doing his "Nightwave" show on KWVE?
T
Thomps2525
Guest
I checked my copy of Tom Kneitel's 1986 book Radio Station Treasury 1900-1946 and there are no listings for a KTWV. The FCC database ( https://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/fmq?call=KTWV ) makes no mention of the KTWV call letters existing prior to KMET's acquisition of them in 1987. As for the likelihood of KTWV being confused with KWVE, I direct your attention to the following letter which appeared in the Los Angeles Times on August 23, 1987:
"In reference to Robert Hilburn's statement that 'no big-time promotion man is going to be able to walk into a powerhouse station like the vacuous KWVE or the air-headed KPWR and say, "Boy, have I got a record for you,"' we at 94.7 The WAVE are always appreciative of a mention in Sunday Calendar but we do request that, when you refer to us, you use our correct call letters, KTWV." -- Jane Shayne, KTWV Director of Advertising, Marketing and Promotion
http://articles.latimes.com/1987-08-23/entertainment/ca-2848_1_reference-los-angeles-ktwv
"In reference to Robert Hilburn's statement that 'no big-time promotion man is going to be able to walk into a powerhouse station like the vacuous KWVE or the air-headed KPWR and say, "Boy, have I got a record for you,"' we at 94.7 The WAVE are always appreciative of a mention in Sunday Calendar but we do request that, when you refer to us, you use our correct call letters, KTWV." -- Jane Shayne, KTWV Director of Advertising, Marketing and Promotion
http://articles.latimes.com/1987-08-23/entertainment/ca-2848_1_reference-los-angeles-ktwv
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
Well, I happened to be on the air at another station when the format flip happened in 1987. I'm sure if I had been listening I would have been able to pull the answer completely from memory.
To paraphrase Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca: I am shocked — shocked— to find that the FCC's database has errors in it! (Not to mention the person who was at Metropolitan at the time who apparently made up a good story to tell me. If he weren't already dead ...)
I heard the original K-Wave format only once, in 1982. I gather from the way you described the timeline that you were there after Calvary acquired it, oldies, but the original A/C format wasn't all that bad.
As for my musing about potential legal action: The WWE case probably didn't create any case law that could be cited in a case involving different types of businesses, and it has been noted here on RD and other places that Educational Media Foundation does not air its "K-Love" format in Los Angeles because of the use of that phrase by KLVE/107.5 going back to the 1970s.
So I tried to reconstruct a timeline that I didn't know was a fiction and therefore I'm wrong. I think I'm lucky to remember 1987 at all, truthfully.
To paraphrase Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca: I am shocked — shocked— to find that the FCC's database has errors in it! (Not to mention the person who was at Metropolitan at the time who apparently made up a good story to tell me. If he weren't already dead ...)
I heard the original K-Wave format only once, in 1982. I gather from the way you described the timeline that you were there after Calvary acquired it, oldies, but the original A/C format wasn't all that bad.
As for my musing about potential legal action: The WWE case probably didn't create any case law that could be cited in a case involving different types of businesses, and it has been noted here on RD and other places that Educational Media Foundation does not air its "K-Love" format in Los Angeles because of the use of that phrase by KLVE/107.5 going back to the 1970s.
So I tried to reconstruct a timeline that I didn't know was a fiction and therefore I'm wrong. I think I'm lucky to remember 1987 at all, truthfully.
That was back in the day when a proposed call change had to be notified to all stations within a certain distance of the new call request and giving any station the opportunity to object.
Either KWVE did not object or the distance between the stations precluded Metromedia from having to notify. At the time, KWVE was 50 kw at 500 feet, simple B. The coverage overlap and/or distance may have fallen beyond the FCC's call protection.
There was no need to go to court; the FCC had a procedure to avoid call confusion in overlapping coverage areas. A court would have tossed this back to the FCC who granted the calls.
It would be interesting to know if KWVE ever filed for a service mark for its use of the "wave" identifier.
- Status