Do call letters still have meaning?

[CTListener]

Some shortwave QSLs? Looks awesome!

Yes. Top row: Hungary and Canada. Middle row: Australia, Philippines, Lebanon, Spain. Bottom row: Israel, Italy, South Africa, Soviet Union, Hawaii.

 

[ZantennaG1]

Yes. Top row: Hungary and Canada. Middle row: Australia, Philippines, Lebanon, Spain. Bottom row: Israel, Italy, South Africa, Soviet Union, Hawaii.

I can't vouch for most of those, but I do receive R. Exterior Espana in the summer, and recently, R. New Zealand International has been strong on 13.840 Mhz.

 

[CTListener]

I can't vouch for most of those, but I do receive R. Exterior Espana in the summer, and recently, R. New Zealand International has been strong on 13.840 Mhz.

Most of these are gone from the SW bands. The Radio Canada QSL is the oldest, and one of my first -- January 1967. I was a geeky 11-year-old with a hand-me-down 1940s-vintage table radio that had two bands: AM broadcast and 4-12 MHz SW. With a random length of wire strung around the bedroom, it was still good enough to bring in most of these stations.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

That was common in the early days (1920-23), before stations could select their own call letters. Calls like WBBM (We Broadcast Better Music), WMAQ (We Must Ask Questions), and KFCB (Kind Friends Come Back) were sequentially assigned, and the slogans came later (if they really did; some of those are a bit of a stretch).

KFCB those call letters were once on a TV station in Concord/San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose area in the 1980's and 1990's which is now known as KTNC San Francisco.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

KSAN stands for San Francisco under Cumulus Radio

Also KSAN is used for a San Angelo NBC affiliate in Texas.

https://www.nexstar.tv/stations/ksan/

 

[Radio Bob]

Likewise, Arbitron used to compile diary mentions by type.

Many diary entries were for slogans such a Z-100 or Easy 105. Quite a few had morning show or talk show names, such as "Rush" or "Rick Dees" or "Scott Shannon". Of course, there were some of "Howard Stern KLSX" or "Howard Stern on Rock 102".

Very few had call letters, around 8%. And those were mostly for stations that had no name other than the calls... WGN, WSB, KFI. And those were mostly traditional AM stations. Practically no station that had a name got diary entries that were for the calls or included the calls.

Over 80% had the dial position or the dial position and a name; mostly dial position though.

Today, there is an issue with dial position because so many listeners are not "tuning in" on a radio but seeking by name on some kind of a streaming device. Stations that did fine as "FM 100" in their local market will find that such a name is not a help in calling up a stream as there may be a whole bunch of stations with that name.

I was told by the long-time diary experts at Arbitron that as digital radio dials grew in popularity, call letter mentions declined and dial position ones increased. But that was a slow process that took about two decades to evolve.

Is your friend's study available? (I'd even love to have it for the ratings section of www.worldradiohistory.com!)

Unfortunately, he passed several years ago so I'm no longer privy to exact figures that he created. It was his belief that calls were no longer acceptable in promotion. My answer is use your frequency followed by your city

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

KGBS and WGBS those call letters have to be random given that Los Angeles, San Antonio and Austin had the KGBS calls at some point in their history.

Likewise WGBS has been in New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Hampton, VA at some point in their history.

KGBS - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGBS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KKHI

KKHI has to be in a similar situation where it's call letters are most likely random and have been with different owners. Those call letters were originally in San Francisco but they went to Colorado and Wyoming prior to being in Hawaii.

 

[davideduardo]

KGBS and WGBS those call letters have to be random given that Los Angeles, San Antonio and Austin had the KGBS calls at some point in their history.

Likewise WGBS has been in New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Hampton, VA at some point in their history.

KKHI has to be in a similar situation where it's call letters are most likely random and have been with different owners. Those call letters were originally in San Francisco but they went to Colorado and Wyoming prior to being in Hawaii.

Not random, selected by the licensee. At a point back in the 1920's, the FCC stopped assigning calls and letting the licensee pick them. A few cases exist where a new licensee did not pick calls and then, and only then, the FCC stepped in and assigned.

I've never examined how "late" in radio's history the FCC routinely assigned random call letters. Perhaps Scott Fybush can give us some perspective on this.

Example: WGBS in Miami and LA were for George B. Storer, the head of the ownership company.

Like the Storer case, calls often represented the owner, the ownership company or something local (KRGV: Rio Grande Valley) or personal. If you look at https://worldradiohistory.com/call_letters.htm you can see the significance of lots of calls; many if not most are not obvious.

 

[Don CT]

Not random, selected by the licensee. At a point back in the 1920's, the FCC stopped assigning calls and letting the licensee pick them. A few cases exist where a new licensee did not pick calls and then, and only then, the FCC stepped in and assigned.

I've never examined how "late" in radio's history the FCC routinely assigned random call letters. Perhaps Scott Fybush can give us some perspective on this.

Example: WGBS in Miami and LA were for George B. Storer, the head of the ownership company.

Like the Storer case, calls often represented the owner, the ownership company or something local (KRGV: Rio Grande Valley) or personal. If you look at https://worldradiohistory.com/call_letters.htm you can see the significance of lots of calls; many if not most are not obvious.

Can an original owner request the call letters in a sale or are those sometimes part of the deal to keep the letters.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I'd like to know how UNC-TV in North Carolina and Bible Broadcasting Network got their letters.

WUNC is obvious, but every time they would put a new TV station on the air, it had the same first three letters.

Same for most of BBN's stations, starting with WYFG. WYFF is an unrelated TV station called "Your Friend Four".

 

[davideduardo]

Can an original owner request the call letters in a sale or are those sometimes part of the deal to keep the letters.

Generally the station name and call letters are part of the sale. The exception would be if the seller either has other stations with the same calls in the market and does not want the buyer to use them or when the seller is upgrading to a better technical facility and wishes to keep the calls for the new frequency.

In 1959, WJMO, a 1 kw daytimer on 1540 in Cleveland, bought WSRS, a fulltimer on 1490. They sold 1540 but required that the new owner adopt new call letters and they filed with the FCC to move WJMO to 1490.

In later years, KOB in Albuquerque was sold while the owner kept KOB-TV. The sale contract specified that the new radio owner must change calls, and they became KKOB.

In some cases, the seller does not care. WCBS and WABC in New York are not owned by CBS or ABC, but were allowed to keep the call letters.

In any case, this is a business decision and not determined by the FCC, who simply complies with what the licensee requests.

 

[davideduardo]

I'd like to know how UNC-TV in North Carolina and Bible Broadcasting Network got their letters.

WUNC is obvious, but every time they would put a new TV station on the air, it had the same first three letters.

An applicant checks the FCC lists and can apply for any available set of calls not in use.

In the past, one had to notify all stations in the region of a pending change and another station could object. That procedure was abandoned .

 

[Don CT]

Generally the station name and call letters are part of the sale. The exception would be if the seller either has other stations with the same calls in the market and does not want the buyer to use them or when the seller is upgrading to a better technical facility and wishes to keep the calls for the new frequency.

In 1959, WJMO, a 1 kw daytimer on 1540 in Cleveland, bought WSRS, a fulltimer on 1490. They sold 1540 but required that the new owner adopt new call letters and they filed with the FCC to move WJMO to 1490.

In later years, KOB in Albuquerque was sold while the owner kept KOB-TV. The sale contract specified that the new radio owner must change calls, and they became KKOB.

In some cases, the seller does not care. WCBS and WABC in New York are not owned by CBS or ABC, but were allowed to keep the call letters.

In any case, this is a business decision and not determined by the FCC, who simply complies with what the licensee requests.

Is there a clause where Audacy has to change the call letters in 10-20-50 years?

 

[tvnut]

Is there a clause where Audacy has to change the call letters in 10-20-50 years?

It's 20 years from the purchase of WCBS-AM-FM and KCBS-AM-FM. Audacy gets to keep WBBM calls and those for the other stations in the purchase permanently, and CBS gets to keep WBBM for TV.

 

[CTListener]

An applicant checks the FCC lists and can apply for any available set of calls not in use.

Hence, WGBH (Great Blue Hill, not God Bless Harvard), WGBX and WGBY. I've read that the X in WGBX may have stood for "eXperimental," since it was an early UHF station, but AFAIK, the Y in WGBY (Springfield) is there just because it was available. There's no Great Blue anything in Western Massachusetts, and Yale is about an hour and a quarter down I-91 in Connecticut.

 

[vchimpanzee]

An applicant checks the FCC lists and can apply for any available set of calls not in use.

In the past, one had to notify all stations in the region of a pending change and another station could object. That procedure was abandoned .

But somehow the letters used by UNC and BBN stations were never in use.