Most cities mentioned in legal ID

[ngriffin]

Columbus, GA market's South 106 ID back in the late 90's had 7 cities as I remember...

"WSTH Alexander City, Columbus, Phenix City, Auburn, Opelika, Manchester, La Grange... South 106!"

Today I think they just use Alex City and Columbus. Transmitter is north of Auburn, AL and covers a big part of east AL and west GA.

 

[Poledo]

Is it very common for stations to ID with their COL and add one or two random cities within their coverage area for TOH IDs? Thus making each ID unique since apparently a computer is picking the other towns at random. This seems to be a common practice in the Mobile/Pensacola/Fort Walton radio markets.

 

[K-Billy]

In Kansas it's KSAJ Abilene/Salina/Junction City/Manhattan.

 

[TheDingo]

here in north AL we have a couple with 4 cities mentioned

"Classic Rock 106-1 WTAK...HD1 Hartselle Decatur Athens Huntsville"
"WYTK Rogersville, Athens, Decatur, The Shoals - Sports radio 93-9 the score"

and another topic, longest TOH ID period I remember hearing, is during Alabama football, we have 4 frequencies carrying it here (two cumulus simulcasters) and they combine all the IDs into one, "WVNN Athens, WVNN-FM Trinity, WUMP Madison, W280BA Madison" and a commercial for Popeye's all crammed into 10 seconds.

 

[drummer1965usa]

2 from Iowa: KFMW, Waterloo, Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and KFMH Muscatine, Davenport, Rock Island, Moline, Bettendorf, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids. (KFMH is now KBEA and all they say is KBEA Muscatine, Quad Cities.)

I dunno about the "Rock Island, Moline, Bettendorf" part in KFMH's ID -- when I started listening to them in college (at the U. of Iowa, in 1985), all they ever mentioned was "Muscatine, Davenport, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids". The IDs back then, by the way, were live by whichever DJ was on the air at the time. The new 99 Plus KFMH webstream is using one of the old pre-recorded IDs at the top of every hour that says "Muscatine, Davenport, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids....everywhere!"

Rick in South Omaha, Nebraska

 

[SonoSational18]

The FCC used to be stricter about this. If you wanted a hyphenated ID you either had to be licensed to both cities or get an FCC waiver to add the additional city to your ID this entailed a lot of red tape and you would have to do ascertainment (remember that?) for both cities, provide local toll free telephone lines and do programming that "served" the second city. Those rules were relaxed about 20 years ago and pretty much now you can add a laundry list of stations after your legal COL without additional permissions. Back in the day stations would find all kinds of ways to skate around the requirement. The most common was to add an apostrophe to the additional cities you wanted to appear in your ID and not pause at what would technically be the end of a sentence. For instance, "WHTZ NEWARK. New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut's hot rockin' Z-100" where Newark was the COL would be heard as "WNTZ Newark-New Jersey-New York..." Another similar ID was WVBF FRAMINGHAM. Boston's F-105 with...." You really had to listen for that apostrophe so it sounded like "WVBF Framingham-Boston. F-105 with.." Subtle, but effective. Another trick was to bury the COL in the weather report coming out of a :55 newscast. For instance: "WCUE CUYAHOGA FALLS temperature 55, in downtown Akron it's 56. I still think it's illegal to pair your call letters with a city which is not your primary COL. You can say "Z-100 New York" but not "WHTZ New York." Of course, now "WHTZ Newark-New York City" is OK. My favorite of all time was WGTZ Eaton, Ohio serving the Dayton market. "WGTZ EATON. Dayton alive!," which was heard by the listener as "WGTZ... eatin' Dayton alive." Slick!

 

[pianoplayer88key]

speaking of hiding an ID in the weather, how's this?

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ABDX/message/60082

…49 degrees at WTCB Orangeburg has 48……followed by a loud singing jingle W-T-C-B, Columbia!

Also my local ESPN stations with their transmitter in Baja seem to undermodulate their legal IDs and/or bury them under the ESPN music while saying it in Spanish as fast as a disclaimer…

GE SR3 - 1700 - 2011-01-02 03;56p PST (edited) - XEPE - TOH break, incl legal ID @ 2;03.mp3

SRF-59 - 1700 - 2011-09-28 2058 - XEPE TOH ID (@ 0;05, simulcasting 1090 XEPRS).mp3

SRF-59 - 1700 - 2011-09-29 1200 PDT - XEPE TOH ID (@ 0;29).mp3

 

[charlestondxman]

They've done that for at least 10 years, maybe more at WTCB.

 

[satech]

Now, there are a small number of stations for which more than one community appears on the license. Such as KNOW-FM 91.1, licensed to "Minneapolis-St. Paul" or KDGE licensed to "Fort Worth-Dallas".

Also 1510 WWSM, licensed to "Annville-Cleona", PA (two small towns next to each other).

 

[CalebC]

It's been a few years since I've heard it. But at least then, I know KJCK-FM in north-central Kansas always said "Junction City-Manhattan-Fort Riley-Salina".

 

[davideduardo]

The FCC used to be stricter about this. If you wanted a hyphenated ID you either had to be licensed to both cities or get an FCC waiver to add the additional city to your ID this entailed a lot of red tape and you would have to do ascertainment (remember that?) for both cities, provide local toll free telephone lines and do programming that "served" the second city.

Of course, a city close enough to get inclusion as a second "hyphenated" city of license is a city that would been part of a station's ascertainment and Public Affairs, News, Educational and Other programming anyway. That's because the FCC mandated that service be provided to the community of license, not the city of license and the community was considered to be the area where the station has the proper signal to provide such services.

On of the first ascertainments I did (both for the stations I managed and as organizer of the local broadcasters association joint ascertainment) was for two stations licensed to San Juan. However, we included community leaders from the public and private sectors from not only San Juan, but also the adjacent Municipaities of Bayamón, Cataño, Carolina, Guaynabo, Trujillo Alto, Toa Baja, Canóvanas and Loíza in the process to fully cover the community of metropolitan San Juan. We also got quite a few State authorities, such as the governor, the heads of the four major political parities and even the Resident Commissioner who sits in Congress in Washington. That's because we were obligated to survey the community of licence, not the city.

 

[Wright County Guy]

For years in the Twin Cities, WCCO-AM did a legal ID at the top of the hour "WCCO, Minneapolis, St. Paul" (COL is Minneapolis) and an illegal one at the bottom of the hour "WCCO, St. Paul, Minneapolis". Can't play favoritism, ya know!

 

[ftballfan]

Heard this one today via tropo:
WKCQ Saginaw/Bay City/Midland/Flint

 

[shadough]

The old Z93 in Jacksonville used to sound like, "WZAZ, Green Cove Springs, Jacksonville, Orange park, St Augustine."