Stations that don't serve their city of license

[zumahans]

I stand corrected, my knowledge goes back to working there in the 1970s and being told that Phoenix-Mesa were the COL.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

FCC:

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?list=0&facid=35486

KPNX AZ MESA USA Licensee: MULTIMEDIA HOLDINGS CORPORATION Service Designation: TV NTSC (analog) television station Channel: 12 204 - 210 MHz Licensed

Is this all kind of nitpicking, though? I've been to the area a few times, and I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between Phoenix and Mesa (or Chandler, etc.).

Full-power stations in "suburban" Phoenix serve the entire market, period.

 

[dhett]

Is this all kind of nitpicking, though? I've been to the area a few times, and I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between Phoenix and Mesa (or Chandler, etc.).

Full-power stations in "suburban" Phoenix serve the entire market, period.

Yes, it is nitpicking, but the topic was actually brought up as a comparison to an earlier post, which contended that WUAB 43 Lorain OH ignores Lorain in favor of Cleveland. Well, yeah, but whether a station serves Lorain or Cleveland isn't any more relevant than whether a station serves Mesa or Phoenix - full power stations in "suburban" Cleveland serve the entire market, period.

 

[Markxxx]

Does Channel 12 ID as Phoenix-Mesa or Mesa-Phoenix. The FCC allows you to tack on other cities but the city it's allocated to must be first.

Part of the issue especially with western cities is that they have grown so much sinc the IDs were made. Phoenix is 10 times as large as it was in 1950. Probably more than 10 times as large.

New Britian was once considered it's "own" city but now is a suburb of Hartford.

Also you have to take in consideration markets in the west are HUGE compared to eastern markets, some like Boston and Providence, and Washington and Baltimore are really more so for political reasons than market need.

 

[zumahans]

Phoenix Mesa. Since at least 1960.

I think that the allocation is Mesa, but the COL is Phx Mesa.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

Does Channel 12 ID as Phoenix-Mesa or Mesa-Phoenix. The FCC allows you to tack on other cities but the city it's allocated to must be first.

Phoenix Mesa. Since at least 1960. I think that the allocation is Mesa, but the COL is Phx Mesa.

The ID visual is always "Phoenix-Mesa" but in the FCC TV Query (as linked in a
post above) the COL is listed as "Mesa."

If all the other metro AMs, FMs and TVs with COLs other than Phoenix properly ID
themselves as, for example, KPPX Tolleson-Phoenix (visual) or KDKB Mesa-Phoenix
(aural), why doesn't Mc12 have to play under the same rules, and reverse their
visual to read KPNX Mesa-Phoenix?

Yes, on the PHX boards we rag (pun intended) on Gannett's incestuous relationship
between Mc12 and the Arizona Socialist Republic, but we also throw regular darts
at many of the other local radio and TV outlets, along with the (mc)bland and
nearly bald air staffers, among others.

 

[zumahans]

I'll offer the guess that the FCC approved the Phoenix Mesa COL when it approved the move to Phoneix in the late 1950s, and call letter change from KVAR to KTAR.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

I'll offer a guess that as long as the call letters "KPHX" and the city "Mesa" appear near enough to each other on the visual ID, the FCC doesn't care.

I'll note that if I've ever seen the ID, I didn't pay attention - I haven't been to the market in a couple of years.

According to the FCC link I gave above, the ID is "Mesa", not "Phoenix-Mesa". The FCC database is usually up to snuff on stuff like that...we have an AM a ways south of here that has a dual-city legal ID, and that shows up.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

Yes, it is nitpicking, but the topic was actually brought up as a comparison to an earlier post, which contended that WUAB 43 Lorain OH ignores Lorain in favor of Cleveland. Well, yeah, but whether a station serves Lorain or Cleveland isn't any more relevant than whether a station serves Mesa or Phoenix - full power stations in "suburban" Cleveland serve the entire market, period.

True.

But since I live in the region, some perspective here... Lorain/Elyria is a more self-contained area that is part of the Cleveland market. It has its own radio stations, though a large part of radio listening is to the powerful Cleveland stations.

Technically, Lorain and Elyria are Cleveland suburbs, but not quite in the same way as Mesa is to Phoenix.

 

[KeithE4]

According to the FCC link I gave above, the ID is "Mesa", not "Phoenix-Mesa". The FCC database is usually up to snuff on stuff like that...we have an AM a ways south of here that has a dual-city legal ID, and that shows up.

The COL and channel allocation are Mesa, but they do ID as "Phoenix-Mesa" and have for over 45 years, both as KTAR-TV and KPNX. I'll guess that they had to ID just as Mesa when they were KTYL-TV and KVAR, but since I wasn't here then, somebody who was and has a long memory will have to verify that.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

The COL and channel allocation are Mesa, but they do ID as "Phoenix-Mesa" and have for over 45 years, both as KTAR-TV and KPNX. I'll guess that they had to ID just as Mesa when they were KTYL-TV and KVAR, but since I wasn't here then, somebody who was and has a long memory will have to verify that.

Well, I've never said they don't ID that way - just that there has to be some reason the FCC allows them to do so. The legal ID would have to be "KPHX Mesa" (with Phoenix or whatever allowed after it).

My own speculation is that the FCC is more lenient with the visual ID.

 

[zumahans]

The visual ID and audio ID have always matched.

I'll bet Keith remembers the Arizona Highways slides that KTAR-TV Phoenix-Mesa used as IDs.

I'd love to see the old Combined Communications Corporation signoff film that channel 12 used back in the 1970s, when the station signed off.

It was a filmed, animated and scored Arizona travelogue, with this catchy chorus:

"In the mountains, in the deserts, communciations, channel 12, Phoenix, Arizona, K-T-A-R."

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

I'm curious what the story is behind this. The license is clearly to Mesa, unless there's just some paperwork attached to this that is not available on the FCC website.

 

[zumahans]

Since the FCC action allowing the Mesa station to move to Phoenix was in the 1950s, it won't be on any newfangled internet thingy.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

Since the FCC action allowing the Mesa station to move to Phoenix was in the 1950s, it won't be on any newfangled internet thingy.

Yes, but it should be on the database TODAY, at the link I posted. There's no reason KPHX should be listed to a COL of Mesa if that was changed at some point, long before the FCC put up an Internet presence.

Anyway, I'll just have to drop off the train here, and figure that there is some reason the FCC didn't do that.

 

[ajhenderson]

It's actually KPNX, as opposed to the radio station KPHX. I may be missing something, but it seems that although AFAIK the FCC allowed for studios outside your COL but within your city-grade pattern in the 1970s, but granted stations like 12 an exception before that. But how does that affect an ID? As seen above, there are plenty of suburban and exurban TV and radio stations with central city studios/offices. You can ID as "KPNX Mesa Los Angeles" as far as the FCC is concerned. In radio, while IDs are heard in a certain order rather than splashed on a screen, folks have argued that "as long as the COL is heard near the calls, it's an ID", and they've always been overruled by the commission. If that were the case, how close could you be? "KPHX Phoenix-Scottsdale-Gilbert-Chandler-Carefree-Wickenburg-Mesa"?

 

[zumahans]

The FCC most certainly did not always countenance "as long as the COL is heard near the calls" on a legal ID.

In 1980, the Douglas FCC monitoring office sent a nastygram to us at the adobe and wattle KTUC studios because some imbecile young news director (me) was running a legal ID with Walter Cronkite (!) saluting "newsradio 14 KTUC in Tucson Arizona, celebrating 55 years of keeping Southern AZ informed." Old Ironbottoms ad libbed the "in" - the copy we had mailed to CRN in NY was FCC compliant.

The letter warned that nothing, NOTHINGK, could come in between the calls and city.

 

[ajhenderson]

Yes, hence my point. I hear a decent number of stations inserting "in" between the calls and the COL (more so than any other infraction). I believe the rules for radio and TV are similar; on radio, the frequency (channel?) or channel number or licensee can be between them

 

[Markxxx]

Here's from the FCC website

Station Identification. Stations must make identification announcements when they sign on and off for the day. They must also make the announcements hourly, as close to the hour as possible, at a natural programming break. TV stations may make these announcements on- screen or by voice only. Official station identification includes the station's call letters followed by the community or communities specified in its license as the station's location. Between the call letters and its community, the station may insert the name of the licensee, the station's channel number, and/or its frequency. However, we do not allow any other insertion.

 

[CentralFloridaEagle]

Here's a couple for you:

WMOR-TV 32 is licensed to Lakeland, Florida but does no locally originated programming, at least not aimed toward the Lakeland/Winter Haven area and bills itself as a Tampa station. Lakeland is approximately 35 miles east of Tampa on I-4.