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Peach 96.5 becoming new country 96.5 Macon bad move

eddiepritchett

eddiepritchett

Saw this on Facebook today makes me sad this was the best Christmas music station. Why does Macon need another country music station when we already have wden. It'll be dead within a year or so

Peach friends: Thank you very much for listening to us over the last 6 1/2 years. We truly appreciate it. Tonight at Midnight, Peach 96.5 will become New Country 96.5.

We are truly blessed to have been a part of your lives and daily routine. We hope you'll sample the new station. But if you miss Peach music, please try listening to this iHeartRadio station (below). It's a commercial free version of what we were doing.

Thank you again for listening from the whole Peach Staff:
-Murphy, Sam, Jodi, Jana, John, Lori, Bruce, JT, Jack and Helen
 
From Wikipedia:

Former callsigns:
WWIQ (1992-1997)
WNML-FM (1997-1998)
WIBD (1998-1999)
WRNC-FM (1999-2001)
WJZY-FM (2001-2002)
WYNF (2002-2006)[1]
 
It's a shame that Peach is no more anywhere in Georgia. The next question is "Will Clear Channel keep the rights to the Peach name if in the event they wanted to resurrect it in the Atlanta market? Or will they dump the rights to the Peach name altogether and let any other company (Cumulus, Cox, etc.) take the Peach name and put it on a station of their choice?" Now it's obvious that a callsign change for New Country 96.5 is inevitable sooner or later. At least, the Macon people still have an AC station on Z93.7 WPEZ-FM, a Cumulus station.

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WPEZ&service=FM&status=L&hours=U
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=32.753334,+-83.562775+(WPEZ-FM)&om=1
 
Apparently, no one has trademarked the word Peach as a radio identity, so as soon as the present user abandons it, another user ought to be free to pick it up and use it to his heart's content. If I were running or thinking of running a radio station, I would very much like the WPCH call sign.
 
Witchlover said:
Apparently, no one has trademarked the word Peach as a radio identity, so as soon as the present user abandons it, another user ought to be free to pick it up and use it to his heart's content. If I were running or thinking of running a radio station, I would very much like the WPCH call sign.
Click to expand...

How can we tell it's not been trademarked? I thought for sure that Clear Channel would have grabbed it.
 
According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office

[url]http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=4006:vu2404.1.1
[/url]
there are over 1100 current trademarked usages of the word "Peach," none of them belonging to Clear Channel. The only mentioned trademarks pertaining to this topic are the old, now expired trademark filed for by WPCH by Meredith Inc., which is marked as DEAD by the USPTO:

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4006:vu2404.11.2

and one for JAYCOR which is marked as ABANDONED in 1996:

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4006:vu2404.11.1


A word of caution: You may have to do your own search, as this web site appears to have timeout issues. I found the WPCH trademark references by entering "WPCH" and "radio" into the search boxes.
 
Witchlover said:
According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office

[url]http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=4006:vu2404.1.1
[/url]
there are over 1100 current trademarked usages of the word "Peach," none of them belonging to Clear Channel. The only mentioned trademarks pertaining to this topic are the old, now expired trademark filed for by WPCH by Meredith Inc., which is marked as DEAD by the USPTO:

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4006:vu2404.11.2

and one for JAYCOR which is marked as ABANDONED in 1996:

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4006:vu2404.11.1


A word of caution: You may have to do your own search, as this web site appears to have timeout issues. I found the WPCH trademark references by entering "WPCH" and "radio" into the search boxes.
Click to expand...

That was pretty cool. I did do a search on Georgia's Secretary of State's website and found this:

Mark Name: PEACH
Mark Type: SERVICE MARK
Registration No.: S-20282
Registration Date: 1/14/2003
Expiration Date: 1/14/2023 (ACTIVE)
First used by an Individual: FEBRUARY 1972
First used in Georgia: FEBRUARY 1972
Owner of Mark: CAPSTAR RADIO OPERATING COMPANY, 7080 INDUSTRIAL HIGHWAY, MACON, GA 31216
Classification: 5 - Communications
Mark used in connection with: RADIO BROADCASTING SERVICES
Description: THE WORD "PEACH"

I didn't think our friends at Clear Channel would leave something like that to chance. It may not be a national copyright/trademark, but it's registered in Georgia.
 
That would keep another station from using it - in Georgia. I wonder if anyone has ever taken a U.S. trademark, tried to use it in Georgia and been prevented from doing so, and then challenged the decision on the grounds that they held the national trademark? As you aver, CC didn't get where they are by leaving anything to chance. I doubt they'll surrender the service mark or just let it expire. They will sit on it and maybe use it in the future.
 
In most instances a state registration will override a national registration as long as the state date is earlier than the national one. A great example is Waffle House in Indiana was known as Waffle Steak until 2005. This was because a restaurant chain had registered the name in Indiana in 1967 and that predated the national Waffle House trademark. In 2005 a deal was made and all of the Indiana Waffle Steaks finally converted to the Waffle House name.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/215/514227649_be7972230f.jpg
Trivia: This is a pic of a Waffle Steak before the signs were changed. I was told by a region manager that the word "steak" was chosen because it had the same number of letters as "house". Waffle House wanted to save money on changing the signs if they ever got the rights to Waffle House in Indiana. Waffle House is a very frugal company.
 
Also, if someone were to apply for trademark registration for the word "Peach" alone, USPTO would probably refuse the registration, since there have been quite a number of controversial cases where someone has tried to trademark and limit the use of common words and phrases. If the word "Peach" can be trademarked, though, you can bet CC would vigorously oppose the application on the grounds of established prior use.
 
Witchlover said:
That would keep another station from using it - in Georgia. I wonder if anyone has ever taken a U.S. trademark, tried to use it in Georgia and been prevented from doing so, and then challenged the decision on the grounds that they held the national trademark? As you aver, CC didn't get where they are by leaving anything to chance. I doubt they'll surrender the service mark or just let it expire. They will sit on it and maybe use it in the future.
Click to expand...

WPEH in Louisville has been using Peach in their corporation and radio identity since 1960. The corporate ownership is in the name of Peach Broadcasting.
 
I was thinking that there were a couple of companies using the Peach, but can't name any off the top of my head. Now I know of two. Perhaps that is why there is no Federal trademark.
 
"Peach" is service marked in Georgia by AM/FM (Clear Channel) for communications use. In other words, no other radio or television station can use "Peach" in Georgia. Without CC's permission, anyway. As for WPEH (specifically) and other broadcasters with proof of prior and continuous use, I would imagine that supersedes the CC registration. I'll go one step more and say that I suspect that CC's interest is really only on Macon-area use. Maybe Atlanta.
 
If someone was going to try to program to the +55 demo with elevator music "Peach" might mean something.

If you want to make money go hot AC or country and be "Peachy" WPCY or WPHY. Or "Peaches" WPES. I personally believe in Diary markets, "Dial" postion in the slogan is more important. IMHO 96 Rock in Atlanta was one of the best. I a PPM market except for branding call letters / slogans really don't matter except for FCC's legal ID.
 
Now that you bring it up ... BOB106.9, I-95, E-93, 94 The Beat, KIX96 ... five in the Savannah market which immediately sprang to mind - and I am a regular listener to only one of the five
 
I just thought about this. Macon has 3 country stations.
WDEN 99.1
WPCH 96.5
WPGA 100.9

Now radio-locator was WPGA listed as playing Adult Contempary. But the show "Mix in the morning" they say "We play everything country" I don't think Macon needs another country station either. If you include WQZY 95.9 from Dublin and WMCG 104.9 from Dublin that is 5 country stations. Even though 104.9 is classic country.
 
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