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What about the calls?
- Thread starter bucwhyl
- Start date
bucwhyl said:
With PPM, call letters do not matter for revenue.
secondchoice said:
Calls do matter for revenue, as the PPM lists stations by call letters so those calls are invaluable for sales identity. Where they don't matter is among listeners, as the PPM does not pick up calls or slogans like the diary... it registers a station code and the time and date only.
And for a true simulcast, nearly all opperators choose to have one or more sumulcast partners combined with the calls of the "key station" in the simulcast operation so the calls are irrelevant on the FM.
MarcB said:
Interesting that they took the calls once used by a direct competitor from another era. I wonder if they thought WEAN had any heritage in the market?
Not to Clear Channel, considering that they dumped WPCH for WLTM in one of the most boneheaded moves in ATL radio. And it wouldn't surprise me if they dumped WKLS or WGST, no matter who knows who Don Kennedy is or the fact that WGST (or at least the calls) was originally Georgia Tech's radio station.Talk_Dude said:
But then again, why do small metro stations pick up old ATL calls like WLTA, WPLO, and WEKS?
Talk_Dude said:
But if there was no heritage equity in them, why bother? WLTA I could understand because it's ATL backwards, and not just the longtime calls of 99.7. But otherwise why would a mom-and-pop country station in Lawrenceville want calls that refer to the Plough drug company (now part of Schering-Plough), without the heritage from 590?
WEKS is perhaps the weirdest of all, and maybe someone could 'splain that one to me. Wasn't WEKS previously on an urban station? Why would a country station (The Bear) want that?
And why did Cox and CC park WFOX and WPCH respectively on out-of-town stations? Could part of the reason be to prevent a market competitor from leveraging that heritage? Would Citadel change WYAY to WFOX and adopt some branding like "The Fox True Oldies Channel", given the chance?
It's not just Atlanta calls that get parked elsewhere -- for example, Clear Channel has had the legacy Tampa WYNF calls parked in Georgia for several years now. It prevents a competitor from bringing them back, even as a once-an-hour legal ID.
While call letters carry less weight in the PPM era, remember that newspapers generally refer to a station by its calls, at least in the first reference of a station. In this case, the potential for confusion for WSB/WBTS with WSB-FM on a sister station in the market is strong.
The counter-argument against switching call letters around in a market is that it can be confusing for ad buyers, which tend to rely on call letters for national ad purchases. But I could only imagine the confusion that could be caused in this case where WSB-FM doesn't reflect the FM simulcast of 750 WSB on 95.5 but instead is the legal ID for B-98.5.
While call letters carry less weight in the PPM era, remember that newspapers generally refer to a station by its calls, at least in the first reference of a station. In this case, the potential for confusion for WSB/WBTS with WSB-FM on a sister station in the market is strong.
The counter-argument against switching call letters around in a market is that it can be confusing for ad buyers, which tend to rely on call letters for national ad purchases. But I could only imagine the confusion that could be caused in this case where WSB-FM doesn't reflect the FM simulcast of 750 WSB on 95.5 but instead is the legal ID for B-98.5.
Looking at the other Cox Radio News/Talk stations on AM and FM in other markets such as Jacksonville, Dayton, Tulsa. They all have the same calls on both the AM and FM. So my guess is 95.5 will soon have the WSB-FM calls.
92.5 was originally going to be imaged as, "Kissin' Country" and, thus, the calls WEKS. Those were the Kiss 104 calls way back when it was 104.1(the first time)I think Zappas owned it in those days.
I can't remember which station was using "The Bear" for imaging ....Griffin was not the first to use it.
I can't remember which station was using "The Bear" for imaging ....Griffin was not the first to use it.
Did the search on Yahoo and only found the WSBB calls are used on a AM station in Florida
I can understand parking heritage calls in another market to keep them from being used, as Entercom did for New Orleans' WSMB, which got placed in Memphis for a while.
But the small town stations picking up popular calls is a mystery to me. In Alabama, Birmingham heritage calls WVOK wound up on a hot AC station in Anniston, and the WSGN calls wound up on a public radio repeater in Gadsden. Weird.
But the small town stations picking up popular calls is a mystery to me. In Alabama, Birmingham heritage calls WVOK wound up on a hot AC station in Anniston, and the WSGN calls wound up on a public radio repeater in Gadsden. Weird.
Zach said:
If a major company wants to "park" calls for future use because the calls have value, then wouldn't a small market operator grabbing up heritage calls as an investment property he might be able to sell in the future make sense? Look at how many people register website names in case someone wants to buy them.
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