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What makes a station hold on to it's calls?

O

osr

Guest
I have been wondering this, but never knew the reason.

Why do some stations hold on to calls that no longer represent the station that they are used on? For example:

103.3 KJOJ- JOJ stands for Joy of Jesus. What does La Raza have to do with Jesus?
98.5 KTJM- TJM stands for "The Jam", which was 98.5's incarnation after it dropped the "Kiss" slogan. What does KTJM have to do with La Raza, either?
97.1 KTHT- the HT stood for "Hot" 97.1. Why wasn't there a change when Country Legends was launched?


These are the three that sticks out to me. There are others such as KBME (Best Music Ever) that doesn't even PLAY music anymore..but is it just laziness? Is it a huge effort to get new calls assigned from the FCC, or what?<P ID="signature">______________
You can't kill rock-n-roll, it's here to stay
R.I.P. KEGL-Dallas & KLOL-Houston</P>
 
> KTHT has been around Houston for a long, long time. Many
> years before "Hot".
>
Yes I know. KTHT was the initial calls to Channel 67 when it first signed on as an independant TV station back in the 80's. What I'm asking is why Cox has kept the KTHT calls on 97.1 when they acquired them for 97.1 when they first formatted it as a Hot AC station in 2000? Why wouldn't they change them to better reflect the current format of classic country with classic country calls such as KIKK or KENR? Even KNUZ would reflect Classic Country better than KTHT does. It's just a thought.<P ID="signature">______________
You can't kill rock-n-roll, it's here to stay
R.I.P. KEGL-Dallas & KLOL-Houston</P>
 
> I have been wondering this, but never knew the reason.
>
> Why do some stations hold on to calls that no longer
> represent the station that they are used on? For example:
>
> 103.3 KJOJ- JOJ stands for Joy of Jesus. What does La Raza
> have to do with Jesus?

Spanish stations do not, as a rule, use the calls in Spanish. Why spend the extra money if it is not necessary?

> 98.5 KTJM- TJM stands for "The Jam", which was 98.5's
> incarnation after it dropped the "Kiss" slogan. What does
> KTJM have to do with La Raza, either?

Same answer.

> 97.1 KTHT- the HT stood for "Hot" 97.1. Why wasn't there a
> change when Country Legends was launched?

Maybe they did not think calls to be that important. for music FMs, about 70% to 80% of diary mentions are by frequency, anyway.
>
>
> These are the three that sticks out to me. There are others
> such as KBME (Best Music Ever) that doesn't even PLAY music
> anymore..but is it just laziness? Is it a huge effort to get
> new calls assigned from the FCC, or what?

In many cases, the calls don't make a difference to the operator, as they do not intend to make the calls a major part o fth emarketing. In others, it is just money that does not need to be spent.
>
 
> > I have been wondering this, but never knew the reason.
> >
> > Why do some stations hold on to calls that no longer
> > represent the station that they are used on? For example:
> >
> > 103.3 KJOJ- JOJ stands for Joy of Jesus. What does La Raza
>
> > have to do with Jesus?
>
> Spanish stations do not, as a rule, use the calls in
> Spanish. Why spend the extra money if it is not necessary?
>
> > 98.5 KTJM- TJM stands for "The Jam", which was 98.5's
> > incarnation after it dropped the "Kiss" slogan. What does
> > KTJM have to do with La Raza, either?
>
> Same answer.
>
> > 97.1 KTHT- the HT stood for "Hot" 97.1. Why wasn't there a
>
> > change when Country Legends was launched?
>
> Maybe they did not think calls to be that important. for
> music FMs, about 70% to 80% of diary mentions are by
> frequency, anyway.
> >
> >
> > These are the three that sticks out to me. There are
> others
> > such as KBME (Best Music Ever) that doesn't even PLAY
> music
> > anymore..but is it just laziness? Is it a huge effort to
> get
> > new calls assigned from the FCC, or what?
>
> In many cases, the calls don't make a difference to the
> operator, as they do not intend to make the calls a major
> part o fth emarketing. In others, it is just money that does
> not need to be spent.
> >
>
Your reasoning makes complete sense. I would think that calls for these stations would reflect the imaging of the station, but now realizing what you said, I can see why they would not have as much importance as I thought that they would have.<P ID="signature">______________
You can't kill rock-n-roll, it's here to stay
R.I.P. KEGL-Dallas & KLOL-Houston</P>
 
> Yes I know. KTHT was the initial calls to Channel 67 when it
> first signed on as an independant TV station back in the
> 80's.

The KTHT call also resided on 790 for many years prior to 1972.

Channel 67 was KTHT for only eight months, during the initial indie incarnation. It changed to KHSH when it flipped to Home Shopping Network in the fall of 1986. The station is of course now KFTH.
 
>
> The KTHT call also resided on 790 for many years prior to
> 1972.

>

790-AM (KBME) first signed on as KTHT back in 1944 and kept those call letters until they changed to KULF around 1972.
 
> 97.1 KTHT- the HT stood for "Hot" 97.1. Why wasn't there a
> change when Country Legends was launched?

Original calls, I believe.
<P ID="signature">______________

AOL IM: wnjoldies
HyLitRadio.com
Oldies Board co-moderator</P>
 
> >
> Your reasoning makes complete sense. I would think that
> calls for these stations would reflect the imaging of the
> station, but now realizing what you said, I can see why they
> would not have as much importance as I thought that they
> would have.

I'll share a kind of funny story. While working for an FM in Argentina, we wanted to contract for a certain US based music scheduling software licence. To fill out the contract, they insisted that we had to put in the call letters. We checked witht he engineer... he did not know. We looked in files. we could not find any reference. We called the government licencing bureau, and they did not have them on hand, but siad they would get back to us... and in about 3 daysk, they let us know what our call letters were.

This is fairly typical in most nations of Latin America (Except, oddly, Chile, Colombia and Mexico) where ID with calls is not required. In fact, I wanted to use calls as the "identity" of a station in Ecuador, and was told we had to have a name, and that using calls as an identifier on air was prohibited.
>
 
> > 97.1 KTHT- the HT stood for "Hot" 97.1. Why wasn't there a
> > change when Country Legends was launched?
>
> Original calls, I believe.

Since it signed on in December 1992, 97.1 has been KRTK, KEYH-FM, KOND, KRTK (again), KKTL, and finally KTHT.
 
> 790-AM (KBME) first signed on as KTHT back in 1944 and kept
> those call letters until they changed to KULF around 1972.
>

AND, when it signed on, it was originally on AM 1230. When 790AM opened up, David H. Morris and the rest of Veteran's Broadcasting felt it wouldn't be cost effective to run 5000 watts. They made a deal with the KTHT owners to move to 790AM. After all, you only needed 250 watts to cover Houston. KTHT then moved to 790, while KNUZ appeared on 1230.

They regretted it years later when 5000 watt 610 KLBS became 610 KILT. That 5000 watt decision came back to bite 'em in the butt. The rest was Rock 'N Roll history.
 
> This is fairly typical in most nations of Latin America
> (Except, oddly, Chile, Colombia and Mexico) where ID with
> calls is not required. In fact, I wanted to use calls as the
> "identity" of a station in Ecuador, and was told we had to
> have a name, and that using calls as an identifier on air
> was prohibited.

Then, there's the UK, where there's no call sign, but you're required to give your station name every 15 minutes.<P ID="signature">______________
...co-moderator of the Satellite Radio, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, and San Diego boards...</P>
 
Why wouldn't they
> change them to better reflect the current format of classic
> country with classic country calls such as KIKK or KENR?
> Even KNUZ would reflect Classic Country better than KTHT
> does. It's just a thought.
>
Depends on your frame of reference, time-wise. KTHT (1230/790) played country music in the 40s. In fact, one of their djs from that era is in the Country Radio Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

Virtually every station in Houston played country at one time or another in the 40s or 50s or at least had some country music (most stations were block programmed until the mid-to-late 50s). The only notable exceptions would be KCOH and the early FMs.

Speaking of CRBHOF, congratulations to Arch Yancey who was inducted last year. I missed that.<P ID="signature">______________
'But have you ever heard music on a crystal set? That's the sweetest music ever broadcast.' Alfred P. Daniel, Houston radio pioneer, in an interview in 1948.</P>
 
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