QUICK QUESTION: KGAY???

[hungryhawk]

How is it possible for KITS to change their call letters to KGAY?
I realize it's just an on-air stunt, and if I remember correctly the TOH ID's never changed, but still, isn't there a legal issue involved?

What if there was an actual KGAY registered with the FCC? Would they still be allowed to do the stunt?

 

[1069_KIFR]

A station can pretty much call themselves whatever they want. But at the top of the hour that station must announce their call letters and the city of their licensed transmitter is located. As in the example of LIVE 105 calling themselves as KGAY, top of the hour they will announce "K I T S , San Francisco" then proceed with their programming.

 

[hungryhawk]

Thanks,

So does that mean KITS could call itself, "The Bone" so long as they still used the KITS Legal?

Or how about this???

Could KITS run imaging that said KFRC during times that were not at the top of the hour?

 

[radiogurl45]

1069_KIFR is correct. If you listened closely to KFRC when they came back the legal i.d. quickly said "k-i-f-r-k-f-r-c 106.9 classic hits" same with KMVQ until the call letters went into affect, officially a few days later

 

[djtalker]

Yes, there is a KGAY in Salem, Oregon .... unless they have changed call letters, but they are AM. I don't persue a problem and it is very imaginative in a market like S.F. Cudoos to those folks at KITS. Marvelous!!

 

[1069_KIFR]

Thanks,

So does that mean KITS could call itself, "The Bone" so long as they still used the KITS Legal?

Or how about this???

Could KITS run imaging that said KFRC during times that were not at the top of the hour?

That's a good question.

But do ya really think it would be a wise decision for a station to do that? People would see through that and would hurt the station much more in the long run than for a short pop of attention.

KGAY is for one day, for one celebration. No one else copies them and calls themselves KGAY.

For LIVE 105 to brand itself as 'The Bone' or even 'KFRC', I believe there may be some local trademarks infringements or even some gentlemens agreement/ unwritten rules/ethics broken.

 

[DavidKaye]

How is it possible for KITS to change their call letters to KGAY?

You give the FCC an application and a check for $100. What do you mean, how is it possible? It's indeed possible. Currently there are no stations with the callsign KGAY.

As to why they might do it, it's probably to capitalize on the success of KNGY, Energy 92.7. But people aren't fooled by also-rans.

 

[weav]

Actually 105 has been doing that for years before the advent of Energy (though why they STILL do it is beyond me).

Both stations had a pretty good presence at Pink Saturday / Pride Weekend, and while Karel kinda out-gays Fern & Greg, I think the latter are a lot more tasteful...

 

[RadioJunkieMike]

Did I miss something? Why was this question being asked today? Live 105 didn't do K-GAY this past Pride Day (first time in a number of years).

 

[sloux]

A station can pretty much call themselves whatever they want. But at the top of the hour that station must announce their call letters and the city of their licensed transmitter is located. As in the example of LIVE 105 calling themselves as KGAY, top of the hour they will announce "K I T S , San Francisco" then proceed with their programming.

Back when I was in radio some 17 years ago, you could not announce "false call signs" as the FCC did...maybe still does...require that you not misrepresent the station's call sign and city of license.

In the mid 1990's San Francisco's 93.3 MHz facility was issued the KYCY call sign. Young Country, right? Anyway, some PD had it in his or her head to create liners which included, "KYCY, San Jose" at :30 while announcing the legal ID at :00 as "KYCY San Francisco." No doubt there was an intent to sound local and relevant to the Bay Area's largest city, even though that was not the city of license. We hear it all the time, "KGO, San Francisco, San Jose Oakland" as a station says to its listeners, "We are in your city, not just SF." But up until then, I had never heard someone break the cardinal rule of call sign + city of license. It appeared to be a false call sign to me, so I called up someone there and asked them if they realized what they were doing. The :30 San Jose reference ceased a few days later.

The radio industry is largely filled with cynicysm these days. I'm fairly certain someone will say the FCC doesn't really care anymore what stations do or say except at :00. Is that really true?

 

[sloux]

But at the top of the hour that station must announce...the city of their licensed transmitter is located.

Perhaps a minor technicality, but the city of license does not necessarily correlate to the city in which the transmitter is located, any more than it identifies where the studios are located. A prime 50Kw example is KFAX, which has its transmitter on the Hayward shores and studios in Fremont, but its city of license is San Francisco.

 

[1069_KIFR]

That is correct. Example; 107.7 The Bone. Their legal ID is KSAN, San Mateo. Their studio is in SF, their transmtter is located in San Mateo.

 

[DavidKaye]

Both stations had a pretty good presence at Pink Saturday / Pride Weekend, and while Karel kinda out-gays Fern & Greg, I think the latter are a lot more tasteful...

Amen on the "tasteful" comment. And you're right; I remember KITS having a big presence at SF gay pride for many years. I guess it goes back to the days of Steve Masters now that I think of it.

 

[DavidKaye]

That is correct. Example; 107.7 The Bone. Their legal ID is KSAN, San Mateo. Their studio is in SF, their transmtter is located in San Mateo.

Actually not quite correct. I once worked for 107.7. At the time its transmitter was located on King's Mountain above Woodside. It has since been moved to Mt. San Bruno. I'm not sure that they've ever had a transmitter in San Mateo. Lots of stations are like this. KNGY 92.7 is licensed to Alameda, yet both their studios and transmitter are in SF. KFAX is licensed to SF and at one time they maintained transmitters in both SF and Hayward (1kw night and 50kw day sites).

The criteria are different for AM and FM.

For AM, the question is can a new station be built that doesn't interfere with an existing station and can provide a "city grade" signal into the proposed city of license without being so strong as to overwhelm the city of license? If so, the FCC generally lets it get built. Thus, KSFO can locate in SF with 5kw, but KGO, KNBR, KCBS, and KFAX must locate miles away from SF so as not to overwhelm the COL. In the coming months when KSFO expands to 50kw, they will move the transmitter out of SF to Collinsville, along the Delta north of Pittsburg. KTRB was built in such as way as well. The FCC doesn't seem to care if a community is served by too many AM stations; they'll license another one if it doesn't cause interference to existing ones.

A way to increase power or add nighttime authorization for a station is to demonstrate that it can serve a city of license that is not presently served. Thus, for AM 1510 to get nighttime authorization they determined a city "not being served" (Piedmont) and moved the COL from San Rafael to Piedmont. San Rafael already is served by the station on 100.9.

For FM, a station can be put on the air if a channel for it already exists in the table of allocations or if a good argument can be made to adjust the table in the interests of "serving the community". Thus 104.9 in Fremont was moved to Sunnyvale, a city without an existing station and its transmitter moved from Fremont to San Jose.

Oddly enough, the FCC seems to think its FM table of allocations is better than actual real-world experience, so sometimes they allow stations to be built that shouldn't be. One example was 101.7 which was moved from Livermore to Hayward. In theory it was far enough from Mt. San Bruno to not cause problems to 101.3 (then KPEN, now KIOI), but apparently it wasn't, so it was moved back to Livermore.

But as for "serving" the city of license, that has become mostly science fiction. KSAN 107.7 no more serves San Mateo than the DeYoung museum serves San Mateo.

 

[DavidKaye]

In the mid 1990's San Francisco's 93.3 MHz facility was issued the KYCY call sign. Young Country, right? Anyway, some PD had it in his or her head to create liners which included, "KYCY, San Jose" at :30 while announcing the legal ID at :00 as "KYCY San Francisco."

That seems illegal to me.

KTVU Channel 2 once had an inferiority complex about being licensed to Oakland. They came up with a unique solution. Y'see, a station can announce its callsign and ownership and the FCC is fine with that. Well, Cox, the owners of KTVU decided to call the licensee "San Francisco-Oakland Television", and thus they announced as "KTVU, San Francisco-Oakland Television" and the FCC was happy as a clam with that. They still had to run a for-real ID slide showing "KTVU Oakland".

 

[BossRadioDJ]

The radio industry is largely filled with cynicysm these days. I'm fairly certain someone will say the FCC doesn't really care anymore what stations do or say except at :00. Is that really true?

Case in point: each and every TOH, on 1050 AM you'll hear (small voice) "KTCT San Mateo" (loud voice) "KNBR 1050."

I talked with an FCC field inspector about this. He shrugged and said, correctly, "Well, they met the legal requirement."

In other words, who cares?

We've covered this subject previously on this board (re: K-101/KIOI, etc.); the FCC is more concerned with fighting indecency and making certain that corporations can own as many stations as they want. What relevance do call letters have in these times?

A cell phone, incidentally, is actually a radio. I'm not required to say "This is W6XXFRL-15220" each top of the hour when I'm on my cell phone, so why should anyone else? (Maybe my cell phone company should...)

DJ

 

[sloux]

The radio industry is largely filled with cynicysm these days. I'm fairly certain someone will say the FCC doesn't really care anymore what stations do or say except at :00. Is that really true?

Case in point: each and every TOH, on 1050 AM you'll hear (small voice) "KTCT San Mateo" (loud voice) "KNBR 1050."

I talked with an FCC field inspector about this. He shrugged and said, correctly, "Well, they met the legal requirement."

In other words, who cares?

We've covered this subject previously on this board (re: K-101/KIOI, etc.); the FCC is more concerned with fighting indecency and making certain that corporations can own as many stations as they want. What relevance do call letters have in these times?

A cell phone, incidentally, is actually a radio. I'm not required to say "This is W6XXFRL-15220" each top of the hour when I'm on my cell phone, so why should anyone else? (Maybe my cell phone company should...)

DJ

Well, I think you proved my assertion: cynicysm in the broadcast industry runs deep when one starts talking about FCC regulation and ownership issues.

Although your somewhat tongue-in-cheek comparison of a cellular telephone to a broadcast facility has some truth in it, you will have to admit two people on cell phones know exactly who they are communicating with (including in most cases the phone number of the caller.) Conceptually these radio signals are fundamentally different: one is a closed circuit common carrier, they other is broadcasting to an unknown soul.

Certainly DXing would be a whole lot more difficult if there were more stations ignoring their ID's or branding their stations with call signs not assigned to the frequency. The KNBR 1050 thing bugs me to no end.

 

[sloux]

DavidKaye wrote:

That seems illegal to me.

KTVU Channel 2 once had an inferiority complex about being licensed to Oakland. They came up with a unique solution. Y'see, a station can announce its callsign and ownership and the FCC is fine with that. Well, Cox, the owners of KTVU decided to call the licensee "San Francisco-Oakland Television", and thus they announced as "KTVU, San Francisco-Oakland Television" and the FCC was happy as a clam with that. They still had to run a for-real ID slide showing "KTVU Oakland".

I was aware of the alternate form of ID including call sign+ownership. The KTVU thing doesn't make sense though. Would it not be, "KTVU, Cox Broadcasting Company?"

 

[ajhenderson]

Yeah, there is no more KGAY. I hadn't heard about this in SF, but heard an LA show talking about KGAY the other day. http://www.971freefm.com/pages/4103.php

 

[DavidKaye]

A cell phone, incidentally, is actually a radio. I'm not required to say "This is W6XXFRL-15220" each top of the hour when I'm on my cell phone, so why should anyone else? (Maybe my cell phone company should...)

There's probably a requirement that the cell service ID itself periodically via Morse Code or some kind of data burst. The Verizon operation in San Francisco has the callsign WPOI239, which I assume is transmitted somehow. Oddly enough, the FCC no longer maintains a database of this info; it is administered privately.