TV CALLS THAT REPRESENT A CITY, PLACE OR GEOGRAPHIC AREA

[radiorob2.0]

Someone has already mentioned WEVV for Evansville, here a few others....

WFIE-First in Evansville
WEHT-Evansville-Henderson Telelvision. Actually WEHT slightly proceeded WFIE but was originally licensed to Henderson.

Kentucky Educational Television stations have call letters that reflect their area or city of license.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_Educational_Television#Stations

 

[RobertAnthony]

In the Portland/Poland Spring, ME market, they have WMTW-TV (ABC) channel 8 of Poland Spring. The station's original transmitter site was, of course, Mount Washington, NH.

Informally, the Hartford/New Haven, CT market has WCCT-TV (CW) channel 20 of Waterbury. I assume WCCT-TV is supposed to mean CW Connecticut.

WCCT, nee WTXX began in 1953 as WATR-TV (53 then to 20), named for the long standing and still locally owned radio station in WATeRbury, CT.

It was a secondary NBC station to WKNB (New Britain), then WNBC (New Britain, CT) later WHNB (Hartford/New Britain). Of course that station is known as WVIT NBC CT or channel 30

There was also the late WHCT 18 (Hartford, CT) now WUVN

 

[KML0224]

Yes. The radio station is WATR-AM 1320 of Waterbury, CT.

The old channel 53 site was on West Peak in Meriden, CT. That might work for some of the Hartford-area FM stations, but not so much for TV. The TV moved down to channel 20, while the transmitter moved to Prospect. That cleared the way for WEDN-TV (PBS) channel 53 of Norwich, CT (letters standing for Educational - Norwich).

The early call letters for channel 30, WKNB-TV, likely stood for Kensington/New Britain. (Kensington is a section of Berlin, which borders New Britain on its south end.) The "V" in WVIT-TV happened around 1978, when Viacom took over the station and increased their power.

Channel 18 was also one known as WGTH-TV, standing for the one-time owners, General Tire and Rubber, Co.

 

[radiorob2.0]

In the Portland/Poland Spring, ME market, they have WMTW-TV (ABC) channel 8 of Poland Spring. The station's original transmitter site was, of course, Mount Washington, NH.

Informally, the Hartford/New Haven, CT market has WCCT-TV (CW) channel 20 of Waterbury. I assume WCCT-TV is supposed to mean CW Connecticut.

WCCT, nee WTXX began in 1953 as WATR-TV (53 then to 20), named for the long standing and still locally owned radio station in WATeRbury, CT.

It was a secondary NBC station to WKNB (New Britain), then WNBC (New Britain, CT) later WHNB (Hartford/New Britain). Of course that station is known as WVIT NBC CT or channel 30

There was also the late WHCT 18 (Hartford, CT) now WUVN

It also stood for Hartford CBS Television as it was owned by CBS in the mid-fifties.

 

[bpatrick]

WBRC Ch. 6 Birmingham (calls are for its original owner, Birmingham
Radio Corporation)

WVTM Ch. 13 Birmingham (for Vulcan (the statue of the god of the
forge that stands on Red Mountain) Times Mirror, former call letters
WAPI stood for onetime owner Alabama Polytechnic Institute, better
known as Auburn University)

Actually, WBRC stood for Bell Radio Corporation.

And the original call letters of Channel 13 were WAFM (Alabama's FM), in reference to its FM sister station that had recently signed on when the station debuted in 1949. It later was known as WABT (Alabama's Best Television). WAFM-FM and WABT both changed their call signs in 1958 to WAPI-FM and WAPI-TV in order to establish uniformity between the AM station, FM station and TV station.

My bad on the Bell Radio Corporation; in fact, I think I've seen their logo somewhere. I probably should have mentioned Ch. 13's previous call letters, WABT and WAFM, but when I moved to Birmingham in 1969 the call letters were WAPI and somewhere along the way I found out that WAPI-AM was originally owned by what used to be called Alabama Polytechnic Institute.
When Times-Mirror bought Ch. 13 the call letters changed to WVTM (Vulcan Times-Mirror); Times-Mirror also had WSTM (Syracuse Times-Mirror), WETM (Elmira Times-Mirror), and WHTM (Harrisburg Times-Mirror).

Now to shift to another city, New York: WNYW's previous calls, WNEW, do not completely stand for New York; the "N" may, but the "EW" stood for Ed Wynn, who started WNEW radio in 1933 as an investment opportunity (and the original call letters of Ch. 5, WABD, stood for Allen B. DuMont, founder of that network which many of you say was revived as Fox). (BTW, there's a whole chapter in Ben Gross's "I Looked And I Listened" about the disastrous opening night of WNEW and Wynn's Amalgamated Broadcasting System, the latter of which lasted about six weeks.)

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

The call letters WVIT date back to a time when the station was owned by Viacom, and stand for "VIacom Television".

Although NBC purchased the station some years ago, the WVIT call letters have remained.

 

[Bob1370]

Forgot one other in upstate NY;

WBNG-TV channel 12, Binghamton, NY: W+BiNGhamton

 

[Mike Braun]

Sorry for any repeats.

Waco/Temple, Texas

KWTX-TV, Channel 10, Waco (K Waco TeXas), signed on 1955.

Also KWTX-AM, 1230kHz, signed on 1946 and KWTX-FM, 97.5MHz, signed on 1970.

KCEN-TV, Channel 6, Temple/Waco (K CENtral Texas), signed on 1953.

 

[joebtsflk1]

3 KTVO, "K"irksville Mo. "TV" "O"ttumwa, Ia. For about a year or so in the mid 80s, it could have tried to replace "TV" with "QH" for Quincy IL, Hannibal MO, but their 2000 foot tower fell that might have created the Tri-States IA-IL-MO market had it survived. KTVO was sold after the 2k tower went up, and the new owners opted to take the insurance money and run...back to the original tower between Kirksville and Ottumwa.

21 (and for its last year, 50) KVFD-TV, Fort Dodge IA. Per owner Ed Breen, "some joker" at the FCC assigned the original AM the KVFD (Kome Visit Fort Dodge) calls in 1938 since Breen and his partners couldn't decide on calls. Tower was heavily damaged in 1977 tornado. Ed Breen, its owner, opted to demolish his channel 50 facility, but died before a new channel 50 tower could be built. KVFD's channel 21 tower and transmitter were sold to Iowa Public Television and KVFD moved to channel 50 in a channel swap. Channel 21 could be considered one of the oldest continually occupied U allotments west of the Mississippi, having gone on the air in 1953.

2 WMT-TV Cedar Rapids, now KGAN. WMT, Waterloo Morning Tribune. It represented a city all right, just not the original city of license. The original AM started in Cedar Rapids in 1922, moved to Waterloo where it picked up the WMT calls, then later moved back to CR and kept WMT calls. To be fair, WMT-TV was one of the earliest dual-cities-of-license, using Cedar Rapids -Waterloo by special FCC permission long before hyphenating at will was legal.

 

[T-K]

In the Seattle-Tacoma market, there's also:
KCTS, which originally stood for King County Television Service.

KCPQ, which takes its calls from Clover Park, the suburban Tacoma school district that formerly owned the station. (Prior to that, Channel 13 was KTVW, with the "W" representing Washington.)

KVOS, the Bellingham station whose former radio companion (now KGMI) began its life 90 miles south as "Kessler's Voice of Seattle"

 

[purpledevil]

Houston only has 5:

08-KUHT- Univerisity of Houston Television (PBS)
11-KHOU- "Stands for Houston" as their slogan. (CBS)
14-KETH- Trinity Broadcasting Houston (TBN)
20-KTXH- Backwards yes, but has the H for Houston and TX for Texas (MYNET)
39-KIAH- Intercontinental Airport Houston, was KHTV(ind) then KHWB(WB) then KHCW(CW)

Now radio is a different story. Quite a few have a Houston association in the call sign, but that's a different topic for a different day.

 

[KeyTimes950]

Now radio is a different story. Quite a few have a Houston association in the call sign, but that's a different topic for a different day.

Pittsburgh, too, but, as you say, a different topic for a different day.

 

[Maine-i-ac]

I can only think of one up here in the Bangor, ME market and that is current WVII (ABC). When it started up in the mid 60's it was WEMT which stood for Eastern Maine Television.

 

[crainbebo]

More!

KNWA-Northwest Arkansas [Ch. 51, NBC]
KFSM-Fort Smith [Ch. 5, CBS]
KWNL/CD-Winslow [Arkansas] [Ch. 9, Univision]
KFTA-Fort SmiTh Arkansas [Ch. 24, FOX]
KOAM-Kansas Oklahoma Arkansas Missouri [Ch. 7, CBS]
KALB-Know Alexandria, Louisiana Better [Ch. 5, NBC]
KLAX-Louisiana and Alexandria [Ch. 31, ABC]
WNTZ-Natchez [MS] [Ch. 48, FOX]
KAIT-Arkansas Independent Television [Ch. 8, ABC]
KOET-Oklahoma Educational Television [Ch. 3, PBS]
KOED-Oklahoma Educational [Ch. 11, PBS]

-crainbebo

 

[KERCAlum]

I'm glad crainbebo mentioned KTXS-TV/Channel 12 in Abilene, Texas. This is a set of call letters that is apparently quite desired by other broadcasters in the state, and I'm surprised nobody else gobbled them up prior to 1966 when the station changed its call letters from KPAR.

Interesting tidbit: When I worked there in the late '80s, I heard a story from our then-chief engineer about an offer made by WFAA-TV/Channel 8 in Dallas/Fort Worth to buy the KTXS call letters for $1 million. The plan was to swap the call letters between the stations, and the KTXS call letters on Channel 8 would allow it to better market its "Spirit of Texas" slogan. And in Abilene, both WFAA and KTXS (both ABC affiliates) were available on local cable - KTXS was on cable channel 4, and WFAA was on cable channel 8. The deal would also have involved a channel switch on cable, where the new KTXS (the old WFAA) would be moved to cable channel 4, and the new WFAA (the old KTXS) would be moved to channel 8 - basically a transparent move for the viewer, except they'd now see Abilene news on channel 8 instead of News 8.

The above is probably a fragmentary and incomplete recollection, and some of it may have been apocryphal story-telling from the CE, but suffice it to say the deal never happened.

 

[newsmark]

Austin, Texas -- KXAN and KTBC (referring to original owner Texas Broadcasting Company)

When KTVV switched to KXAN, management said KXAN stood for Austin News.

Most of the staff thought it seemed more like teXAN, while its then-sister station in Fort Worth was KXAS-teXAS.

Of course, in the past few years, KXAN has marketed itself as Austin News.

 

[willdav713]

I can add some as well if they haven't been added already.

1. Channel 12 (KONO) K- San AntONiO, later renamed to (KSAT) SAT meaning San Antonio also used by the airlines like IAH.

2. Channel 5 (KENS) stood for K-Express News San Antonio.

3. Channel 35 (KRRT) KeRRville, Texas now (KMYS) K-MY-San Antonio.

 

[Limp73]

Western Ohio

WDTN (NBC) DayToN
WLIO (NBC) LIma,Ohio
WLWT (NBC) WLW-Television
WTOL (CBS) TOLedo
WCPO (ABC) Cincinatti POst (Scripps-Howard ownership)
WANE (CBS) fort WAyNE
WRGT (Fox) WRiGT (as in Dayton's Wright Brothers)
WCMH (NBC) as in Columbus' airport abbreviation
WBDT (former WB now CW) the WB in Dayton