KYW-AM ... How did an AM Radio Station on the East Coast acquire call letters?

[amfmsw]

not much to add to that, 'cept the mention of WPTZ Ch3. It was granted an experimental license as W3XE to the Philco Radio Corporation, who was giving RCA's Sarnoff fits over it's rapid developments and improvements in television. There are VOLUMES of written history of Philo Farnsworth, Edwin Armstrong and other genius whose patents were stolen by RCA, Philco among them. Philco (Philadelphia Corporation) was located in the Kensington area near where Coca-Cola (Erie & G) is now. Like Atwater-Kent Radio, Philco grew massively. Unlike A-K, who made top-of-the-line equipment, Philco made REALLY affordable radios, and survived the depression. It went from a storage battery manufacturer for autos to a major contributor to the Space Program. Philco began to specialize in miniaturization of circuits. It's centering in Philly began to wobble with the purchase by Ford Motors to make it's automotive products. (trivia: Philco invented the concentric collapsible car antenna in the 1930's). W3XE was a pioneer in Color Broadcasting, but lost out to RCA. Philco got a permanent license for W3XE and operated it as WPTZ-TV3 (Philco Television) until it's sale.

 

[amfmsw]

And the Mississippi divide: St. Louis, MO with W calls.

There are a few, as the COL is St. Louis, but the transmitters are located across the river in East St. Louis where the land was cheaper. (Similar to WABC NYC in Lodi NJ.) My understanding of the old rules is the transmitter location, east side of the river, would give it a W call.

 

[ixnay]

Regarding Twin Cities geography, the local baseball team's original logo (never used on their caps) notwithstanding, Mpls. and StP. occupy land on both sides of Old Man River. However, the majority of Mpls. (including downtown, the Twinkies,' Viqueens', and T-Pups' facilities) is west of the Miss., and the majority of StP. (including the state capitol, the Mild's arena, and Charles Schulz's old neighborhood around Selby and Snelling Aves.) is "east" (actually north) of the river (which, while running n-to-s through Mpls., flows more west to east in a S curve as it runs through St. Paul before reagaining its southward course). Look it up on Mapquest.

One Mpls. landmark that is east of the river is the main campus of the U. of Minnesota.

ixnay

 

[nd2023]

There was a religious station in Long Island that got assigned K calls last year

 

[w9wi]

There was a religious station in Long Island that got assigned K calls last year

though the FCC promptly changed it to WEGB

 

[Gregg]

There are about 2 dozen W's west of the Mississippi, mostly explained because the K/W dividing line originally was along the eastern border of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. There are only 5 K's east of the Mississippi (not counting those in markets like Minneapolis and New Orleans which straddle the Mississippi).

--KDKA and KQV Pittsburgh, which got their call letters in the early 20s before the K/W rules were firmly established. Both stations claim to be the first commercial broadcasting station in the U.S.
--KYW Philadelphia, which also got its call letters in the 20s while in Chicago.
--KFIZ Fond du Lac, Wisc. This one is unexplained unless the FCC confused Fond du Lac, WI with Fond du Lac, Minnesota, a community near Duluth just west of the Mississippi River. The Duluth-Superior market has a mix of W and K call letters.
--KTGG Spring Arbor, Mich. This one is explained by an FCC clerk thinking MI stood for Missouri or Minnesota, not Michigan.
--There was a K call sign temporarily given to a low-power station not yet constructed on Long Island, NY, but it was never used on the air.

 

[w9wi]

There are about 2 dozen W's west of the Mississippi, mostly explained because the K/W dividing line originally was along the eastern border of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. There are only 5 K's east of the Mississippi (not counting those in markets like Minneapolis and New Orleans which straddle the Mississippi).

--KDKA and KQV Pittsburgh, which got their call letters in the early 20s before the K/W rules were firmly established. Both stations claim to be the first commercial broadcasting station in the U.S.
--KYW Philadelphia, which also got its call letters in the 20s while in Chicago.
--KFIZ Fond du Lac, Wisc. This one is unexplained unless the FCC confused Fond du Lac, WI with Fond du Lac, Minnesota, a community near Duluth just west of the Mississippi River. The Duluth-Superior market has a mix of W and K call letters.
--KTGG Spring Arbor, Mich. This one is explained by an FCC clerk thinking MI stood for Missouri or Minnesota, not Michigan.
--There was a K call sign temporarily given to a low-power station not yet constructed on Long Island, NY, but it was never used on the air.

According to http://earlyradiohistory.us/kwtrivia.htm (which I consider the authoratitive source) current K calls on AM east of the Mississippi:

- KSGM-980 Chester, Ill. (moved from Ste. Genevieve, Mo.)
- KFNS-590 Wood River, Ill. (requested by licensee across the river in Missouri; was previously KEZK)
- KTGG-1540 Okemos, Mich. (inadvertently assigned by FCC)
- KDKA-1020 Pittsburgh (licensed during a brief period when *all* stations received four-letter K-calls. 6/20->4/21. No other broadcast station licensed during this period survives.)
- KQV-1410 Pittsburgh (unknown)
- KYW-1060 Philadelphia (unknown. Moved from Chicago and then Cleveland.)
- KWAM-990 Memphis (moved from West Memphis, Ark.; was KWEM)
- KFIZ-1450 Fond du Lac, Wis. (unknown)

I have heard a rumor to the effect KFIZ was licensed as a portable station, starting in a community west of the Mississippi. When the FCC stopped licensing portable stations, some decided to "anchor" themselves wherever they happened to be operating, and kept appropriate calls. WBBZ landed a W call in Oklahoma this way; it was licensed as a portable out of Chicago.

There are more on FM:
- KRLE-91.3 Carbon Hill, Ala. (unknown)
- KPNT-105.7 Collinsville, Ill. (moved from Ste. Genevieve, Mo.)
- KMJM-104.9 Columbia, Ill. (station has always been in Columbia but calls moved from 107.7 St. Louis)
- KUUL-101.3 East Moline, Ill. (swapped calls with 103.7 Davenport, Iowa)
- KMLU-89.3 McKee, Ky. (unknown)
- KOUI-90.7 Louisville, Miss. (unknown)
- KJMS-101.1 Olive Branch, Miss. (moved from West Memphis, Ark.)
- KBUD-102.1 Sardis, Miss. (unknown)
- KFIZ-107.1 Fond du Lac, Wis. (assigned to match AM)
- KUWS-91.3 Superior, Wis. (unknown, but Superior borders on Minnesota)
- KHQG-102.5 Superior, Wis. (see above)

I suspect most of the unknowns are FCC errors...

 

[Rusty Muck]

Some notes on that story from a Cleveland angle:

KYW-TV in Cleveland was the first station to adopt "Eyewitness News," the originator of Mike Douglas' TV show (which originally competed against, then outright eclipsed, WEWS-TV's "One O' Clock Club"). Tom Snyder, meteorologist Dick Goddard (a fixture at crosstown WJW-TV since 1966!) and Al Primo (who perfected EWN at WABC-TV) all got their starts at KYW-TV in Cleveland.

An interesting sidenote is that KYW-TV preempted The Tonight Show throughout their tenure in Cleveland for a late-night movie, with ABC affiliate WEWS picking up the show. (Ironic considering that Jack Paar was once a popular radio host in Cleveland two decades prior.)

When NBC was forced to take over the Cleveland stations, they wanted to keep the goodwill Group W created with the stations intact to a degree. So they became WKYC AM/FM/TV: "We're 'KY' in Cleveland!"

Goodwill can only get you so far, and NBC kept tinkering with WKYC-AM, taking the Top 40 format Westinghouse installed on KYW-AM in all sorts of directions - even at one point into "acid rock" for a few weeks. All the while airing NBC Radio News casts at the top of the hour. WKYC AM/FM was sold off to Nick Mileti, the then-owner of the Cavaliers and Indians and his syndicate, morphing the calls to WWWE-AM and WWWM-FM. Today they are WTAM and WMJI, respectively.

WKYC-TV wound up as a farm team for the bigger NBC O&Os, Al Roker being the most noted alumni. Still, the station chronically underperformed in the market, even when the network was #1 in the late 80s. NBC finally gave up in 1991, selling off a majority stake to Multimedia, which would merge with Gannett in 1996.

Today, WKYC is in a bit of a paradoxical situation: it's a decent-performing NBC affiliate whereas the network has been languishing badly for years.