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The staggering amount of Cool in North America

Z

ZantennaG1

While I was doing research for my post here:https://www.radiodiscussions.com/threads/best-radio-station-names.740536/post-6423891, I went down the rabbit hole, check this out:
Every "Cool" or "Kool" station is Classic Hits, and there's the following nonsense...
94.5 CIBU Wingham, ON shares the same branding and frequency as KOOL Phoenix, some 1500 miles apart.
There are several "Kool 105" stations:
KXKL Denver on 105.1, KZQL Casper on 105.5, KQOL Gillette on 105.3, WKOL on 105.1 in Plattsburgh, NY, and KWOL (105.1) in Whitefish, MT.

What makes this all fascinating to me is that in the United States, they aren't all owned by the same company (like K-Love or KISS is), but in Canada, they are.

The list of such stations goes on and on, like 98.3 in Atlantic City, NJ, but I think everyone gets the picture.
 
ZantennaG1 said:
While I was doing research for my post here:https://www.radiodiscussions.com/threads/best-radio-station-names.740536/post-6423891, I went down the rabbit hole, check this out:
Every "Cool" or "Kool" station is Classic Hits, and there's the following nonsense...
94.5 CIBU Wingham, ON shares the same branding and frequency as KOOL Phoenix, some 1500 miles apart.
There are several "Kool 105" stations:
KXKL Denver on 105.1, KZQL Casper on 105.5, KQOL Gillette on 105.3, WKOL on 105.1 in Plattsburgh, NY, and KWOL (105.1) in Whitefish, MT.

What makes this all fascinating to me is that in the United States, they aren't all owned by the same company (like K-Love or KISS is), but in Canada, they are.

The list of such stations goes on and on, like 98.3 in Atlantic City, NJ, but I think everyone gets the picture.
Click to expand...
The reason for extensive use of Cool or alternative spellings is that nobody ever took out a national copyright on the name because so many stations were using it already.

The issue here is that the Internet makes every little station "national" and if they register a national trademark, and stream with it, they can actually prevent anyone else from using the name. So that is why iHeart has to many "Kiss" stations... they own the brand and even have licensed it to other companies to use in markets where they were not using the brand.

Those names that are free and clear tend to be used a lot. Whether it is Froggy or Kool or Mega, those are more unrestricted trade markets.
 
DavidEduardo said:
The reason for extensive use of Cool or alternative spellings is that nobody ever took out a national copyright on the name because so many stations were using it already.

The issue here is that the Internet makes every little station "national" and if they register a national trademark, and stream with it, they can actually prevent anyone else from using the name. So that is why iHeart has to many "Kiss" stations... they own the brand and even have licensed it to other companies to use in markets where they were not using the brand.

Those names that are free and clear tend to be used a lot. Whether it is Froggy or Kool or Mega, those are more unrestricted trade markets.
Click to expand...
That makes sense, so "Kool" was never a registered copyright? Also, I forgot about all the Froggy FMs.
 
JBraddock said:
60s and 70s - nothing newer. A stand-alone 500 watt AM that's focused on local advertisers and sports (by necessity - it was late to the frequency (1967) and struggles to reach Frederick ~20 miles to the south).
Click to expand...
So in other words; the deck is completely stacked against any chance of success…
 
ZantennaG1 said:
That makes sense, so "Kool" was never a registered copyright? Also, I forgot about all the Froggy FMs.
Click to expand...
It might be registered in the state as a service mark, but in pre-Internet years stations often did not register nationally.
 
JBraddock said:
60s and 70s - nothing newer. A stand-alone 500 watt AM that's focused on local advertisers and sports (by necessity - it was late to the frequency (1967) and struggles to reach Frederick ~20 miles to the south).
Click to expand...

Great Eastern Radio has a similar station that serves a slice of western New Hampshire and eastern Vermont. The format used to be on 93.9 in West Lebanon, NH, but was demoted to a 106.7 translator a few years ago. It was never a strong performer in the meaningless 6+ ratings as a full-power station, and given the music it plays, I doubt there was any hidden strength in 25-54 in the numbers we mere peasants are not allowed to view.
 
JBraddock said:
WTHU... 60s and 70s - nothing newer. A stand-alone 500 watt AM that's focused on local advertisers and sports (by necessity - it was late to the frequency (1967) and struggles to reach Frederick ~20 miles to the south).
Click to expand...

Kelly A said:
So in other words; the deck is completely stacked against any chance of success…
Click to expand...
Correct. They've been doing this for 3 years now and I doubt the sports even pays the monthly electric bill. Their stream sounds awful. Not sure who the sugar daddy is in this scenario.
 
I worked for a radio station called The hound and at the time.. never knew of nor could i find another one like it with the same name
 
Kool Radio, Classic Hit's of the 60s, 70s, and 80s in Southern New England.

Connecticut: WNTY 990/96.1 Southington
Springfield, MA: WACM 1270/100.1
Westerly, RI: WSKP 1180/104.3

Owned by Full Power Radio.

All 3 stations have the same exact playlist and the same 4 voice tracked jocks. 3 are on 6AM-7PM during the week. The 4th is on 10AM-3PM on Saturdays/Sundays.*

*On Sundays Amy Grey is only heard 2PM-3PM on the Connecticut station due to them having a brokered Italian Show and Lutheran Church Mass.
 
I worked at a Kool 95 (95.3/95.7) in Piqua (Dayton), Ohio in 1997-97. As far as we know there was no fee paid to anyone for the moniker.
 
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