Can't you put the FM channel number between the call letters and COL? No one does because channel numbers are meaningless to listeners, but AFAIK it is allowed. (Aside from translators, where the channel number is baked into the call sign.)
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starting the hour on time
- Thread starter bobdavcav
- Start date
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Yes. Although I did not include that in my earlier cite of § 73.1201, here is the relevant verbiage:
(b) Content.
(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, the station's frequency, the station's channel number, as stated on the station's license, and/or the station's network affiliation may be inserted between the call letters and station location. TV stations, or DAB Stations, choosing to include the station's channel number in the station identification must use the station's major channel number and may distinguish multicast program streams.
Because no distinction is made about "channel number" as being only for TV, and since (last time I checked, anyway) an FM license does also state its channel number, that would be legal.
BTW, before anyone asks, because television stations often are on a different RF channel, "major channel number" means what is transmitted via PSIP.
My question would be "how many listeners know what an FM channel is or means?"
Years ago, I had what might be called a "heated argument" with one of the Univsion executives who wanted to have "a Univision station" (in Spanish, of course) inserted in a highly produced hourly ID.
I insisted that the ID itself, which was the only time the calls were actually used, was an obstruction to music flow and only confused listeners back in the diary days. I wanted soft-as-possible and rapidly delivered IDs that were hidden in the previous stopset. And I believed that adding "Univision", a TV brand, was confusing.
I won the argument, but the executive in question went on to build Miami's largest and most successful ad agency, so I have to ask: is adding ownership to the station ID a positive thing?
KDKA, KYW, WBZ, etc. certainly made "Westinghouse" a prominent part of their IDs for many years. I guess the idea was that if listeners trusted the maker of their household appliances, they'd trust that company to run a good radio station. On the other hand, I have no idea why a small regional broadcaster with no identity outside of radio would weigh down their TOH routine with gratuitous boasting. My favorite country station up here is WXXK Lebanon, NH, whose TOH ID goes "You're listening to the Valley's BIG Country, Kixx 100.5, WXXK Lebanon, part of the Great Eastern Radio family of stations!" What a mouthful! It's even worse on sister station WHDQ, a classic rocker that not only has a slogan and a corporate name to announce, but also two translators and an HD2!
To my ears, the mentions of Audacy, iHeart, Cumulus, etc. at the top of the hour do little to enhance the image of the radio station, maybe even less than the mention of Great Eastern Radio does for the image of WXXK and its sister stations scattered around NH and VT. At least the people behind Great Eastern have something in common with the stations' listeners: They all live in New Hampshire or Vermont. What connections do the big national chains have with their cities of license that normal, human radio listeners would identify with or care about?
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Outside of that example, I can't think of a situation where putting the ownership in the legal ID benefits. For one thing, the major players have their licenses under subsidiary ownership, and the FCC rule says "the name of the licensee".
I doubt iHeart would want to air "KIIS-FM, IHM Licenses LLC, Los Angeles" every hour.
OTOH, the Westinghouse stations did it in the TOH, but not inserted. It has been just short of 16 years since 980 here in L.A. dropped the all-News format -- and that was 11 years after the Westinghouse stations became part of Infinity Broadcasting, but to this day I can still remember:
"The newswatch never stops on KFWB, Los Angeles ... Group W, a Westinghouse Broadcasting station. KFWB Newstime: X o'clock."
But I agree that adding the FM channel number, although allowed, would just be confusing to the listener. It might have made sense when some early FM receivers also included the channel numbers on their tuning dial (probably because when the service was moved from 42-50MHz to 88-108MHz, there was some talk about identifying by channel number instead of frequency).