Original call signs

[dustintv]

Lots of stations upstate have changed their call signs often reflecting ownership changes even though it maybe entirely pointless(hello Clear Channel!). These are the ones I know of:

WHAM-WOKR
WSYR-WIXT
WTVH-WHEN
WGRZ-WGR
WNYS-WSNR
WNYO-WNYB

Any others?

 

[dhett]

Lots more changes, as recently as 2 months ago.

Buffalo:
04 WIVB - WBEN
23 WNLO - WNEQ
26 WNYB - WNYP - WTJA
49 WNYO - WNYB - WBKL (changed to WNYB before sign-on)
51 WPXJ - WAQF (changed to WPXJ before sign-on)
67 WNGS - WJTQ (may have changed to WNGS before sign-on)

Rochester:
08 WROC - WHAM

Syracuse:
03 WSTM - WSYR
09 WSYR - WIXT - WNYS
56 WSPX - WAUP (changed to WSPX before sign-on)
68 WSYT - WKAF

Utica:
33 WFXV - WTUV

Albany/Schenectady/Troy:
13 WNYT - WAST - WTRI
45 WCWN - WEWB - WMHQ - WMHX - WUSV
55 WYPX - WOCD

Binghamton:
12 WBNG - WNBF
34 WIVT - WMGC - WBJA
40 WICZ - WINR

Elmira:
18 WETM - WSYE

Watertown:
07 WWNY - WCNY
16 WPBS - WNPE
50 WWTI - WFYF - WJCK (changed to WFYF before sign-on)

Plattsburgh:
05 WPTE - WIRI
40 WNMN - WCWF (changed 6/16/09)

 

[brandy00]

ALBANY
Don't forget WROW-FM now WYJB
WPTR-FM now WAJZ
WROW-TV to WCDA now WTEN
WGFM now WRVE
WMGT-TV now WCDC (Adams Ma.)
WTRY-AM to WOFX
WPTR-AM to WDCA

 

[brandy00]

Correction

WPTR-AM now WDCD

 

[w9wi]

Lots of stations upstate have changed their call signs often reflecting ownership changes even though it maybe entirely pointless(hello Clear Channel!). These are the ones I know of:

WHAM-WOKR
WSYR-WIXT
WTVH-WHEN
WGRZ-WGR
WNYS-WSNR
WNYO-WNYB

Any others?

Some of these may have been required by the FCC, when TV stations were sold independently of co-owned radio affiliates or vice-versa. (off the top of my head I would think WHAM=>WOKR, WSYR=>WIXT, and WGR=>WGRZ would fall into that category. But not the more recent returns of the WHAM-TV and WSYR-TV calls.)

Today you can keep "conforming" callsigns through a sale, but that wasn't the case in the 1980s.

 

[BobRoss]

Some of these may have been required by the FCC, when TV stations were sold independently of co-owned radio affiliates or vice-versa. (off the top of my head I would think WHAM=>WOKR, WSYR=>WIXT, and WGR=>WGRZ would fall into that category. But not the more recent returns of the WHAM-TV and WSYR-TV calls.)

Today you can keep "conforming" callsigns through a sale, but that wasn't the case in the 1980s.

If your arrows ( => ) are pointing from original to newer call letters, you are wrong in two of those three cases.

WHAM-TV did not become WOKR. The original WHAM-TV became today's WROC. Channel 13 was WOKR from day one, and later became WHAM-TV after Clear Channel wound up owning both.

WSYR did not become WIXT. The original WSYR-TV became today's WSTM (after Syracuse and the then-new owner, the Times Mirror Company). Channel 9 was WIXT from day one, and later became WSYR-TV after Clear Channel wound up owning both.

And yes, obviously it is possible for common call letters to remain in place following a sale: WHAM and WSYR are still owned by Clear Channel, while their TV counterparts are now owned by Newport Television, and call letters have remained intact. (Unfortunately, Clear Channel "protected" both sets of call letters by reassigning them to crappy AM radio stations east of Utica, and then wound up selling those stations to another company... so there's virtually no chance of the WIXT or WOKR calls returning to their respective homes.)

 

[therealjm12]

Couple corrections, Bob. Channel 9 was originally WNYS-TV (just to add more confusion to the mix), then WIXT and today WSYR-TV.

I don't know about Syracuse, but I know for a fact that Clear Channel offered the WOKR calls back to 13 in Rochester when they were getting out. The local management (good people) decided market research showed that the WHAM calls were more identifiable to the local population.. Purist, such as myself, would have liked to seen the return to the WOKR.
I really hate that the WIXT calls are parked on 1230kc in Little Falls. It will always be WLFH to me and the locals.
I suppose if Galaxy cold return the heritage calls if they wanted to. Last I knew they were still available.

 

[dhett]

*deleted*

 

[AMonFM]

Albany:
10 - WTEN < (41) WCDA < (41) WROW-TV

Hagaman / Vail Mills (Amsterdam)
29 - WCDB - taken off air when Albany's Ch. 41 moved to Ch. 10.

 

[jfc40ts]

In Buffalo, Ch. 17 was originally WBUF and became WNED around 1959 or 1960. IIRC, WBUF was affiliated with the Dumont Network...

As long as I'm on the subject of Ch. 17, can someone give me an answer to a question I've had for a few years now? WNED-TV identifies itself as "Buffalo/Toronto". Is this a legal ID? Toronto is not a part of the US and to the best of my knowledge, has never been considered a part of the Buffalo market. I realize a lot of members of Ch. 17 are from southern Ontario but to ID yourself in such a way doesn't seem right. It also sounds like a small market ID like Utica/Rome, NY or Greenville/Spartanburg, SC...

 

[fybush]

WBUF-TV was an NBC owned-and-operated station in its last few years, the odd result of a quirk in FCC ownership limits that then allowed a single company to own five VHF stations plus two more UHFs.

As for WNED-TV, its legal ID is "WNED-TV Buffalo." You can say anything you want before or after the magic combination of calls and city of license. And they'd be foolish to ignore the potential membership/viewership base of several million people on the other side of the border.

 

[mjlarochelle]

WBUF-TV was an NBC owned-and-operated station in its last few years, the odd result of a quirk in FCC ownership limits that then allowed a single company to own five VHF stations plus two more UHFs.

As for WNED-TV, its legal ID is "WNED-TV Buffalo." You can say anything you want before or after the magic combination of calls and city of license. And they'd be foolish to ignore the potential membership/viewership base of several million people on the other side of the border.

Going a little west of the New York state border, WQLN in Erie does the same thing with Erie-London in their IDs, since London, Ontario represents a large chunk of their membership. Not surprisingly, Londoners were upset when the cable company announced plans to switch the PBS station to WTVS from Detroit, and they ended up retracting the plan.

 

[hintomedia]

Other stations with cross-border legal IDs include Bellingham, Washington's KVOS ("Bellingham / Vancouver / Victoria") and Burlington, Vermont's WFFF ("Burlington / Plattsburg / Montreal").

Multiple-city legal IDs don't have to sound small market either. Look at "San Francisco / Oakland / San Jose" and "Dallas / Fort Worth".

 

[SirRoxalot]

Going a little west of the New York state border, WQLN in Erie does the same thing with Erie-London in their IDs, since London, Ontario represents a large chunk of their membership. Not surprisingly, Londoners were upset when the cable company announced plans to switch the PBS station to WTVS from Detroit, and they ended up retracting the plan.

The cable company didn't retract the plan. They simply told WQLN that they wouldn't take an OTA feed and rebroadcast it anymore, and that WTVS was willing to provide Rogers head-end in Windsor with a fiber link for programming. WQLN finally matched the offer after their head bean-counter realized his spreadsheet would show a lot of red if they lost London. It's costing 'QLN significant dollars monthly to provide NPR to Rogers Communications, but they stood to lose a LOT more if they didn't bite the bullet.

 

[tvlurker]

WNED-TV identifies itself as "Buffalo/Toronto". Is this a legal ID?

I think the legal ID ends before the '/'.

Think of all those FM rimshot stations that ID with Call letters followed by whispering their community of license and shouting out the Metro area they're trying to serve. Mentioning a Canadian non-city of license is not much different than mentioning an American non-city of license.

WNED is not the only stations that does this. At least one station (Fox 44) in the Burlington-Plattsburgh market has IDed as Burlington-Plattsburg-Montreal

But while we're on the topic, how did WPTZ get away with being "Plattsburgh-North Pole-Burlington" all those years, when the community of license was North Pole. Should it have IDed as North Pole-Plattsburgh-Burlington.

But the bottom line is that you can do what you can get away with.

 

[fortmill]

In Buffalo, Ch. 17 was originally WBUF and became WNED around 1959 or 1960. IIRC, WBUF was affiliated with the Dumont Network...

As long as I'm on the subject of Ch. 17, can someone give me an answer to a question I've had for a few years now? WNED-TV identifies itself as "Buffalo/Toronto". Is this a legal ID? Toronto is not a part of the US and to the best of my knowledge, has never been considered a part of the Buffalo market. I realize a lot of members of Ch. 17 are from southern Ontario but to ID yourself in such a way doesn't seem right. It also sounds like a small market ID like Utica/Rome, NY or Greenville/Spartanburg, SC...

The Greenvile/Spartanburg/Asheville DMA is #36, significantly larger than the Buffalo market. Sorry.

 

[therealjm12]

And it's not the Utica/Rome TV market. Just Utica. Syracuse gets Rome (which sucks). It is Utica/Rome for radio.

 

[MediaBoy4Radio]

WBUF Channel 17 in Buffalo.....was never a DuMont station.......CBS ...for a time......then purchased by NBC.............It went off the air in Sept of 1958 and was dark until March of the next year when it became the educational WNED.

 

[RBW]

Other stations with cross-border legal IDs include Bellingham, Washington's KVOS ("Bellingham / Vancouver / Victoria") and Burlington, Vermont's WFFF ("Burlington / Plattsburg / Montreal").

In northern New York, there's also 102.7 WLYK... which ID's as "WLYK Cape Vincent/Kingston" (Ont.) Then, to "satisfy" the listeners in Kingston (where their "live" morning show originates, --- and to freshen the illusion that it's a CANADIAN station)the WLYK calls are NEVER used-- (6-9 AM) until they join ABC at 9 AM w/Timeless Favorites. Come to think about it--- why shouldn't they consider themselves a Canadian station, since ALL their news is FROM Kingston, and so are their ads!!

 

[w9wi]

I think the legal ID ends before the '/'.

73.1201(b):
"(1) Official station identification shall consist of the station's call letters immediately followed by the community or communities specified in its license as the station's location: Provided, That the name of the licensee or the station's frequency or channel number, or both, as stated on the station's license may be inserted between the call letters and station location. No other insertion is permissible.

(2) A station may include in its official station identification the name of any additional community or communities, but the community to which the station is licensed must be named first."

So "WNED Buffalo/Toronto" is fine as long as Buffalo comes first.

But while we're on the topic, how did WPTZ get away with being "Plattsburgh-North Pole-Burlington" all those years, when the community of license was North Pole. Should it have IDed as North Pole-Plattsburgh-Burlington.

73.1201(a):
"...Television broadcast stations may make these announcements visually or aurally."

(in other words, they don't have to do both. In other words, it's legal to display "WPTZ Plattsburgh-North Pole-Burlington" on the screen if you say "WPTZ North Pole" aurally. Or vice-versa.

But the bottom line is that you can do what you can get away with.

In a world where "...as close to the hour as feasible, at a natural break in program offerings." can mean 13 minutes before the hour and separated by five minutes of commercials, promos, and weather forecasts is considered OK, I would imagine swapping "Plattsburgh" and "North Pole" isn't going to raise many eyebrows!