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Cleveland, Philadelphia, and the KYW calls

I

ixnay

What's the backstory behind broadcasting's most talked about (at least on R-I/RD) pingponging of a call sign. This poster (born and bred in the Philly area AND who's spent a day in downtown Cleveland) wants to know. So do others, maybe. Are there cyber articles that tell the story in depth?

ixnay
 
ixnay said:
What's the backstory behind broadcasting's most talked about (at least on R-I/RD) pingponging of a call sign. This poster (born and bred in the Philly area AND who's spent a day in downtown Cleveland) wants to know. So do others, maybe. Are there cyber articles that tell the story in depth?

ixnay
Click to expand...

I'm sure there were plenty of articles regarding the Philadelphia/Cleveland swap between Westinghouse and NBC. The bottom line was that NBC said to Westinghouse....."either you swap Philadelphia for Cleveland (which NBC owned at the time) or lose your network affiliation". At the time, network affiliation was paramount for any TV station. So, they swapped stations. The FCC eventually got wise to this shenanigans and demanded that the swap be changed back. Some people (employees), equipment (cameras and whatnot) were moved back to their original locations. As a result, KYW moved back to Philadelphia and WRCV moved to Cleveland as WKYC. There's plenty of info on-line regarding this unique situation.
 
...of course, the call sign KYW had itself originated as Chicago's first radio station, in November 1921; Westinghouse had attempted to obtain a 50,000-watt clear channel designation for the station there, with no cooperation from the FRC. Westinghouse decided to buy out WRAX's Philadelphia license on 1020 kHz and moved KYW onto it in December 1934 (WRAX resurfaced on 920 kHz, in a time-sharing arrangement with WPEN, and would be merged into WPEN outright in May 1938). KYW as a TV call sign didn't exist until the Westinghouse-NBC license swap with the Cleveland facility in February 1956; the original call sign of the Channel 3 license in Philadelphia (under Philco ownership until 1953) was WPTZ...
 
Which has no relation to today's WPTZ-TV (NBC) channel 5 of Plattsburgh, NY (I believe they're owned by Hearst Communications).
 
Westinghouse did eventually acquire WIND in Chicago. By that time, out of town listening was far less important and the station (at 560) had good local coverage.

In a twist to the story, Westinghouse owned WOWO in Fort Wayne. WLIB in New York was on the same frequency but with reduced power at sunset to protect WOWO's skywave signal. WLIB bought WOWO and reduced it's nighttime power, so they could increase nighttime power for WLIB in the New York market. Didn't help. The station went bankrupt.
 
FredLeonard commented: said:
In a twist to the story, Westinghouse owned WOWO in Fort Wayne. WLIB in New York was on the same frequency but with reduced power at sunset to protect WOWO's skywave signal.
Click to expand...

I thought that for many years, WLIB-1190 had to sign-off about one hour after local sunset (whichw as sunset time in Fort Wayne). I thought WLIB got limited nighttime service in the 1980's.
 
Joseph_Gallant said:
FredLeonard commented: said:
In a twist to the story, Westinghouse owned WOWO in Fort Wayne. WLIB in New York was on the same frequency but with reduced power at sunset to protect WOWO's skywave signal.
Click to expand...

I thought that for many years, WLIB-1190 had to sign-off about one hour after local sunset (whichw as sunset time in Fort Wayne). I thought WLIB got limited nighttime service in the 1980's.
Click to expand...

You are correct. WLIB was able to operate until Fort Wayne sunset (1 hour after New York sunset). WOWO was (and still is) non-directional during the day and directional at night. Many times I would hear WLIB sign-off and hear WOWO change patterns right at Fort Wayne sunset. While WOWO would have practically no signal to the west at night, their signal to the east would be a MONSTER! It had a signal you could hear like a local from Canada to Florida and never lose it. WLIB was one of those few "Limited Time" stations just like WJJD 1160/Chicago was able to stay on the air until Salt Lake City sunset (KSL). Inner City bought WOWO from Price Communications (for a "legal instant") and immediate sold WOWO to the Pathfinder Communications with the agreement that WOWO would power down to 9800 watts and protect WLIB. The rest is history. WLIB has had better days.
 
Ultimajock said:
...of course, the call sign KYW had itself originated as Chicago's first radio station, in November 1921; Westinghouse had attempted to obtain a 50,000-watt clear channel designation for the station there, with no cooperation from the FRC. Westinghouse decided to buy out WRAX's Philadelphia license on 1020 kHz and moved KYW onto it in December 1934 (WRAX resurfaced on 920 kHz, in a time-sharing arrangement with WPEN, and would be merged into WPEN outright in May 1938). KYW as a TV call sign didn't exist until the Westinghouse-NBC license swap with the Cleveland facility in February 1956; the original call sign of the Channel 3 license in Philadelphia (under Philco ownership until 1953) was WPTZ...
Click to expand...

The move was forced by a realignment of the 40 clear channel stations by the five sections of the country by the FCC, with eight in each. The section with Chicago had one more than the section to the east. Westinghouse was offered the chance to move KYW, at 1020, to the east, and took advantage, broadcasting from Philly beginning on Dec. 3, 1934 with all-new equipment. It signed off from Chicago the night before. Ironically, KYW was originally at 560, where Westinghouse ended up at when it bought WIND to come into Chicago for a second time. (And, of course, ended up buying WMAQ from RCA in the 1980s.)

While owned by Westinghouse, KYW Chicago was run by Hearst and affiliated with NBC. Only the engineers moved to Philadelphia; everyone else was fired, with a whole new staff taking the air in Philly. NBC bought the 50 percent of WMAQ it didn't own to assure a full time NBC Red outlet, and used WLS/WENR (NBC owned WENR) and WCFL for NBC Blue programs.
 
FredLeonard said:
In a twist to the story, Westinghouse owned WOWO in Fort Wayne. WLIB in New York was on the same frequency but with reduced power at sunset to protect WOWO's skywave signal. WLIB bought WOWO and reduced it's nighttime power, so they could increase nighttime power for WLIB in the New York market. Didn't help. The station went bankrupt.
Click to expand...
Corrections:

1. WLIB was a daytimer and had to sign-off after NYC sunset, give or take an hour or so.

2. WLIB did not go bankrupt. Where did you get that from?

If anything, the boost in power/change from daytimer to 24-hour operation didn't help the station much. They've gone from ethnic Afro-Caribbean-American talker, to Air America, to gospel (the current format).
 
FredLeonard said:
http://www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/106176/court-oks-ymf-media-lma-of-inner-city-stations
Click to expand...

WLIB's failure to take full advantage of its increased signal, and what ultimately happened to Inner City are/were two completely different situations. You were incorrect in tying them together without knowledge of the whole story. WLIB didn't achieve its full potential because of poor choices in programming. Inner City **as a company** went bankrupt because of financial mismanagement.
 
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