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Station Name Brand Registration Search?
- Thread starter dm2024
- Start date
Do you mean the name for a station, like Z-100, a program name, or for an on-air talent or ??
Station name like who owns the name La Que Buena in Texas or La Raza in California .. launching something and want to make sure no one currently has any rights over it
What an informative topic title.
Kind of fits a forum called "General Topics," though, doesn't it?
Wasn’t aware that it needed to be informative.
If every post was called "Question" or "Suggestion" or "Radio", it would be really hard to read the boards
"Answer!"
La Que Buena was in Myrtle Beach SC and La Raza is heard in Charlotte NC. Are those affiliated stations?
They are not
Since the FCC has almost nothing to do with either radio programming or branding, looking there will not provide many answers. Also keep in mind that some brands are local to individual states while others are national. While I don't have a sure way of getting this information, one idea might be to check out the information available on some of the radio aggregator sites in either the neck of the woods where you live or where your station resides and see what branding is being used in those areas. Good luck.
You would have to look on both federal and statewide trademark and service mark databases. Only a few states have their public one online.
If you'd want someone who may know the answer we defintely want you to use descriptive titles.
Probably not. Not distinctive enough and too many stations use "Lite" or "Light" as brands. The horse is out of the barn on that one.
So what do radio stations trademark. They don’t own call letters.
You can trademark call letters as part of your station brand though. For example, Audacy owns the federal trademark to KROQ to prevent someone else from branding any other station as that or selling merch with that name/logo.
Last a year a Christian station in Florida filed a cease & desist on the newly launched "Kingdom 107.1" in Denver because they owned the rights to "Kingdom" for use in broadcasting.
KFCO Denver Drops Its Kingdom Name
Two weeks after launching Christian Hip Hop "Kingdom 107.1" KFCO Bennett/Denver CO, Pillar Media dropped all references to the brand
radioinsight.com
But some can only be trademarked on a state level like "Kiss-FM". Two famous examples from the early 2000s took place in Pennsylvania because of a statewide registration. Clear Channel forced the then new "99.9 The River" WODE in Allentown to change to "99.9 The Hawk" because they owned the servicemark for "The River" from 97.3 WRVV Harrisburg.
A more "Wild" one was when "Wild 96.5" launched in Philadelphia, Clear Channel owned the mark to "Wild" because of the "Wild 9 at 9" countdown on "99.3 Kiss-FM" WHKF Harrisburg. Leading to this infamous clip from consultant Jerry Clifton ahead of that station's rebrand as "Wired 96.5"...
WLDW (Wild 96.5) Philadelphia - late '03/early '04 - Jerry Clifton - FM Airchecks
With CBS Radio CHR “96.5 Amp Radio” WZMP Philadelphia flipping to Hot AC “Today’s 96.5” earlier today, we felt it would be appropriate to flash back to an amusing moment involving the same radio station. This was an on-air announcement from consultant Jerry Clifton — featuring his uniquely...
fmairchecks.com
There are two "Rivers" in Massachusetts -- WRSI Turners Falls and WXRV Andover -- but neither are owned by iHeart (formerly Clear Channel). What would happen if iHeart were to try to rebrand one of its Massachusetts stations "The River"? Nothing, unless either of the operators of the two stations had service marked "River" in Massachusetts? And what of iHeart's "River" in Albany, NY, WRVE, which can be heard in a portion of WRSI's signal range? WRSI also is simulcast on WRSY Marlboro, VT. Vermont also has another "River" in the form of WWOD Woodstock. I assume, though, that since iHeart owns no stations in Vermont, the Green Mountain State is fair game for as many "Rivers" as wish to transmit from within its borders.
Charlotte had a station that called itself WMIX Mix 104.7. I think they got in trouble with the station that actually used the WMIX calls.
Nothing. Iheart owns the statewide service mark in Pennsylvania. They have no ownership of the name anywhere else.
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