Doesn't Disney/ABC still own/control the KGO calls? It's been a long time, so I could be misremembering, but it seems like they kept control of the calls that were shared with the TV stations (WABC, KABC, KGO, WLS) when Citadel bought ABC Radio and Citadel got the right to continue using them. Cumulus inherited that when it bought Citadel.
-
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
KSFO To 810
- Thread starter lanceventa
- Start date
Apparently Cumulus is relinquishing those calls.
That's correct.
Citadel had limited (but indefinite) rights to keep using the shared ABC calls on the stations that were using them at the time of the sale. Those rights passed to its successors - Cumulus for KABC, KGO and WLS, and now Red Apple for WABC.
Those owners can't move the calls elsewhere, so Cumulus can't park the KGO calls on 560.
That's it: They plan to superserve Sacramento!
Originally, they had meaning. KIOI was K101, KISQ was KISS, and KOSF, not sure about that one..
Yes, but the point is that they don’t mean anything now. There’s no reason to expect that new calls mean anything. They might, but really, it clearly doesn’t matter to audiences.
Savage retired from radio four years ago and has changed exclusively to podcasts.
Since were discussing call letters....
Why does iHeart and Audacy continue to park call letters on AM's in other markets when they get dropped from the original station? Some examples: KIFM, KMPS, KUBE, and SF's KFOG.
The only possibility I can think of is returning them at some point to another station or the chance of selling them to a broadcaster who desperately wants it.
However, in the examples above, neither has ever happened.
Why does iHeart and Audacy continue to park call letters on AM's in other markets when they get dropped from the original station? Some examples: KIFM, KMPS, KUBE, and SF's KFOG.
The only possibility I can think of is returning them at some point to another station or the chance of selling them to a broadcaster who desperately wants it.
However, in the examples above, neither has ever happened.
Most agency ad buys come from agency offices that are not in the same market as the station. So media buyers will see call letters of stations they have never listened to and associate them with stations they "used to buy in the past". They don't know that it is a different station with a different format that has picked up abandoned calls.
Interesting... although it sounds like they are putting one over on the ad agency.
KOSF was included as part of a realignment by Iheart San Francisco when they flipped from Classic Rock to Classic hits from 1980's specifically and when 103.7 changed call letters from KKSF to KOSF. KKSF moved to 910 AM and KNEW moved to 960 AM. It was Iheart realigned branding and formats specifically for San Francisco in 2012.
Actually, it's Cumulus that's parking KFOG in Little Rock, last I checked. No doubt this is to keep what was a somewhat-beloved brand from popping up somewhere else on the Bay Area dial. The relevance of KFOG as a brand is pretty questionable at this point, though. Probably few know that "The Bone" is KSAN, for example. The last time I saw publicity for KSAN as KSAN (on a bus ad) was 2000, maybe.
It's the same reason Audacy is keeping KFRC for the FM side of its KCBS simulcast. That and that KCBS-FM is in use in Los Angeles (but honestly, Jack-FM could have anything for call letters). When they made the switch in '08, they didn't want to find out that a competitor could unlock the value of the KFRC calls. But really, what's left of that?
That's also true of KGO
Not at all. By "isolating" the old call letters, they prevent a "new" station from using them to capitalize on the familiarity of the calls among time buyers.
But in this case, the KGO calls are still on a TV station and that station can prevent the usage of that set of letters. Anyone wishing to use calls used in a separate service must reach an agreement with the heritage user of the calls at that time.
I wanted "WNOL" for our AM in Tallahassee for obvious reasons. The licensee that had those calls on an FM elsewhere wanted too much money to consent to usage, so we picked WNLS instead; same thing, lesser price.
True too and notably KSAN is best known for being on 94.9 and 107.7FM in San Francisco.
KSAN-TV - Wikipedia
Interestingly Nexstar uses the KSAN-TV call letters for their San Angelo, Texas TV affiliate. I don’t know if KSAN the one Cumulus manages is still relevant to radio in San Francisco. But apparently it’s relevant to TV in San Angelo, Texas for their local newscasts.
Unless contractually negotiated as was the case when ABC and CBS sold their radio groups, the station with the base call letters with no suffix owns the rights to the calls, which (outside of the two big exceptions noted) means that an AM will always be the primary owner.
As 107.7 KSAN has had those calls since 1997 and does not have a -FM suffix, and KSAN-TV did not until 2003, the TV station group needed to get permission from the radio station to use them. At the time KSAN was owned by Susquehanna, which obviously granted them.
It's to prevent a competitor from resurrecting a dead brand and getting the IP for nothing. That's less of a concern now as companies can keep a brand alive as a webcaster and/or HD subchannel.
The KOSF calls took effect when 103.7 was relaunched as "Oldies 103.7" which makes the use of the O and SF pretty self explanatory.
- Status