New KCBS Website

[travisl5678]

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/ also the CW 44/Cable 12 has a new website http://cwbayarea.cbslocal.com/

 

[DavidKaye]

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/ also the CW 44/Cable 12 has a new website http://cwbayarea.cbslocal.com/

Waaaaa! They took away the KCBS website from KCBS! I always liked the fact that KCBS and KPIX were independent of the corporate way of doing things, being among the first to even have websites.

Now they're confusing things by branding KPIX as KCBS. If they want to do that they should move the KCBS-TV callsign up here, as they should have done all along. The LA TV should have always been KNX-TV to tie in with their historic KNX branding.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

The LA TV should have always been KNX-TV to tie in with their historic KNX branding.

The El Lay O&O was KNXT(TV) for years, before the FCC allowed like calls to be shared
in different markets, thus KCBS-TV Los Angeles.

IIRC, channel 2's original calls were KTSL-TV, prior to the CBS ownership. KTSL stood for
Thomas S. Lee, who (again IIRC) was the son of 1930s left coast radio magnate Don Lee.


BTW...Happy Columbus Day to those of you in Berkeley! ;D

 

[LKellerIII]

Remember that unlike KCBS radio, KPIX was not a CBS owned and operated station - it was owned by Westinghouse. It became an O&O when Westinghouse acquired the CBS network in 1996. KNXT had become KCBS-TV 12 years prior to that - in 1984.

Though I may think the Bay Area is the greatest place in America, I can't argue with the practice of using the network initials as call letters in the number 1 and number 2 markets.

 

[BossRadioDJ]

BTW...Happy Columbus Day to those of you in Berkeley! ;D

Columbus Day, in Berkeley? Mooooooooooooo....

 

[DavidKaye]

The El Lay O&O was KNXT(TV) for years, before the FCC allowed like calls to be shared
in different markets, thus KCBS-TV Los Angeles.

Yes, I know all that. But it still should have been KNX-TV all these years, like KGO's TV station became KGO-TV. The KNXT callsign dates to the era when NBC and CBS distinguished their TV from their radio operations. So, instead of WNBC-TV, it was WNBT, etc. But still....

 

[DavidKaye]

Remember that unlike KCBS radio, KPIX was not a CBS owned and operated station - it was owned by Westinghouse. It became an O&O when Westinghouse acquired the CBS network in 1996. KNXT had become KCBS-TV 12 years prior to that - in 1984.

Though I may think the Bay Area is the greatest place in America, I can't argue with the practice of using the network initials as call letters in the number 1 and number 2 markets.

It's interesting how different this era is from the last. Used to be that group owners made all their station logos look alike or similar, thus ABC's Circle Seven logos and the original Anklepants font on the Westinghouse stations. But since Westinghouse bought CBS they haven't changed anything to unify the logos. KCBS is still in CBS Font (actually a variation of the Didot font) and KPIX is in the Anklepants font. This is true of the other pre-merger stations as well.

 

[LKellerIII]

The El Lay O&O was KNXT(TV) for years, before the FCC allowed like calls to be shared
in different markets, thus KCBS-TV Los Angeles.

Yes, I know all that. But it still should have been KNX-TV all these years, like KGO's TV station became KGO-TV. The KNXT callsign dates to the era when NBC and CBS distinguished their TV from their radio operations. So, instead of WNBC-TV, it was WNBT, etc. But still....

Yes - just adding the "T" to 3 letter calls was quite common for early TV stations. I remember Channel 3 in Santa Barbara was (may still be) KEYT, when KEY-TV would have sounded so much better.

KGOT would have been unpleasant because people would have called it K-Got.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

Yes - just adding the "T" to 3 letter calls was quite common for early TV stations.

As in WLWT Cincinnati for Crosley, a pattern used with sister stations WLWD, WLWC, WLWI
and WLWA.

This makes me wonder...by the early 1950s had the FCC stopped issuing three-letter calls
for new TV stations owned by existing three-letter AMs? That might explain the KNXTs of
the world, however WJZ-TV New York (now WABC-TV) went on the air as such in 1948,
and KGO-TV in 1949. The KTSL-TV > KNXT(TV) change was not until late 1951.

 

[fybush]

It's interesting how different this era is from the last. Used to be that group owners made all their station logos look alike or similar, thus ABC's Circle Seven logos and the original Anklepants font on the Westinghouse stations. But since Westinghouse bought CBS they haven't changed anything to unify the logos. KCBS is still in CBS Font (actually a variation of the Didot font) and KPIX is in the Anklepants font. This is true of the other pre-merger stations as well.

Obligatory rant from an ex-Westinghouser:

The Westinghouse font is not "Anklepants." That's the name of a cheap ripoff of the font that was introduced a decade or so ago by a guy named Ray Larabie. Several characters in "Anklepants" are distinctly different from the actual Westinghouse characters - the M, in particular, is really badly drawn.

The Westinghouse font never had a name, at least not one that I was ever able to discern, and I've asked a lot of people who would have known.

And for whatever it's worth, the "5" that KPIX uses today is not quite the same one they used in the Westinghouse era. The shape of the lower bowl of the 5 is different.

 

[LKellerIII]

Yes - just adding the "T" to 3 letter calls was quite common for early TV stations.

As in WLWT Cincinnati for Crosley, a pattern used with sister stations WLWD, WLWC, WLWI
and WLWA.

This makes me wonder...by the early 1950s had the FCC stopped issuing three-letter calls
for new TV stations owned by existing three-letter AMs? That might explain the KNXTs of
the world, however WJZ-TV New York (now WABC-TV) went on the air as such in 1948,
and KGO-TV in 1949. The KTSL-TV > KNXT(TV) change was not until late 1951.

The answer must be no. According to internet sources, Channel 2 in LA changed its call letters to KNXT in 1951. That was the same year Channel 9 changed its call letters to KHJ-TV, not KHJT.

So my assumption is that station owners with 3 letter calls had the choice to go either way.

Interesting piece of trivia I stumbled into: the KNXT call letters now belong to a Catholic TV station in Fresno, owned by the diocese there. Perhaps "NXT" has some religious significance. Being a heathen, I wouldn't know.

Note to Scott Fybush - I drive by a church in San Francisco that uses the "anklepants" font for their sign. Whenever I see it, I think of KPIX and KFWB.

 

[fybush]

In the very, very earliest days of commercial TV (I'm talking 1941 here), the FCC insisted on separate calls for each service. NBC's experimental station in NYC, W2XBS, became WNBT, not WEAF-TV; CBS became WCBW, not WABC-TV. FM stations had it even worse: in their earliest years of commercial authorization, they had to use letter-number calls: WOR's FM station in New York was W71NY, "71" for its frequency (47.1 mc), "NY" for New York.

By 1943, the FCC was allowing FM stations to adopt standard four-letter calls with the "-FM" suffix, and I believe it was around that same time that TV stations were also allowed to duplicate calls from the "standard broadcast service." One of the earliest examples I can find is Philadelphia's WFIL-TV, licensed in 1947. By 1948-49, there were plenty of those, with both three- and four-letter parent calls: KGO-TV, KFI-TV, WWJ-TV, KECA-TV and so on.

So why did we end up with "WLWT" and "KNXT" and "WBTV," rather than WLW-TV and KNX-TV and WBTV? It wasn't an FCC mandate...so the best I can discern is that the stations in question wanted to brand their TV outlets separately from their radio stations. Maybe they thought TV would eventually supplant radio, and they wanted to be able to sell the radio stations with their branding intact?

 

[DavidKaye]

Obligatory rant from an ex-Westinghouser:

The Westinghouse font is not "Anklepants." That's the name of a cheap ripoff of the font that was introduced a decade or so ago by a guy named Ray Larabie. Several characters in "Anklepants" are distinctly different from the actual Westinghouse characters - the M, in particular, is really badly drawn.

The Westinghouse font never had a name, at least not one that I was ever able to discern, and I've asked a lot of people who would have known.

And for whatever it's worth, the "5" that KPIX uses today is not quite the same one they used in the Westinghouse era. The shape of the lower bowl of the 5 is different.

Hi Scott! Thanks for the correction. I believe the Group W font was created especially for them, but I never knew the name until a few years ago when I kept seeing it referred to as Anklepants, probably one of the most horrid names for a font I've ever heard. As to the shape of the 5, I think you're right. It does look different to me but I couldn't figure out how.

 

[DanStrassberg]

FM stations had it even worse: in their earliest years of commercial authorization, they had to use letter-number calls: WOR's FM station in New York was W71NY, "71" for its frequency (47.1 mc), "NY" for New York.

Do you suppose that it was no accident that WOR's FM station obtained the 47.1 frequency? Back in those days, WOR (AM) always IDed as "71 on the dial," not 710. Could be that the understanding that the FM would be assigned calls that contained the last two digits of its FM frequency motivated the choice of the 47.1 Mc frequency.

So why did we end up with "WLWT" and "KNXT" and "WBTV," rather than WLW-TV and KNX-TV and WBTV? It wasn't an FCC mandate...so the best I can discern is that the stations in question wanted to brand their TV outlets separately from their radio stations. Maybe they thought TV would eventually supplant radio, and they wanted to be able to sell the radio stations with their branding intact?

We'll never solve this one, but my guess is that the -TV and -FM suffixes sounded odd to the station owners, who felt that four-letter calls that contained the AMs' three-letter calls would sound more friendly and familiar and would be more easily remembered than the three-letter AM calls followed by the -TV suffix. Of course, that is just a guess.