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Who wants to be WKRP?

K.M. Richards said:
Believe it or not, the GM specifically requested those calls when he flipped 101.9 from AOR to soft rock in 1989. It was supposed to mean "K-Lite".
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The FCC should simply allow for longer, all-alpha callsigns in broadcasting. KLITE, KPOWER, KEARTH, KOAST, KROCK. The initial emphasis on short call signs (three letters) was undoubtedly rooted in non-broadcast licensees and the need for brevity with Morse code (e.g. Q-codes like QSL). The fourth letter, of course, only begrudgingly came along in response to exhausting all permutations of the three letter system. But post-morse code, there's simply no reason for extreme brevity.

In fact, this is already being done with all the long alphanumeric call signs in use for translators. So yeah, why not open things up for equally long, all-alpha call signs...
 
yeoldeschool said:
The FCC should simply allow for longer, all-alpha callsigns in broadcasting. KLITE, KPOWER, KEARTH, KOAST, KROCK. The initial emphasis on short call signs (three letters) was undoubtedly rooted in non-broadcast licensees and the need for brevity with Morse code (e.g. Q-codes like QSL). The fourth letter, of course, only begrudgingly came along in response to exhausting all permutations of the three letter system. But post-morse code, there's simply no reason for extreme brevity.

In fact, this is already being done with all the long alphanumeric call signs in use for translators. So yeah, why not open things up for equally long, all-alpha call signs...
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Most listeners don’t care about call signs/call letters.
 
radiofan2023 said:
Most listeners don’t care about call signs/call letters.
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Well stations care or they wouldn't favor customized call signs over randomly assigned ones. And whatever makes them care, whether it's professional pride or jazzing the few listeners who notice, would be benefited by allowing a few more letters.
 
yeoldeschool said:
Well stations care or they wouldn't favor customized call signs over randomly assigned ones. And whatever makes them care, whether it's professional pride or jazzing the few listeners who notice, would be benefited by allowing a few more letters.
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Nothing is going to “make” people care. Go ask 10 people what their favorite current radio station’s call letters are. I bet you either most or all of them have no idea.
 
yeoldeschool said:
Well stations care or they wouldn't favor customized call signs over randomly assigned ones. And whatever makes them care, whether it's professional pride or jazzing the few listeners who notice, would be benefited by allowing a few more letters.
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Stations used to care, but that was many years ago.

Back in the day, a new format usually meant new call letters to go with a new station identity. Now they just change the station's nickname or slogan and leave the call letters unchanged. For example, Star 102.1 here in Dallas/Fort Worth still has the KDGE call letters from their days as The Edge, and Alt 103.7 still carries the KVIL call letters that were synonymous with the AC format around here for decades. And it's not just the Dallas area -- WLTJ in Pittsburgh, PA has called themselves Q92.9 for years without ever bothering to change to call letters that actually contain the letter Q.
 
K.M. Richards said:
Believe it or not, the GM specifically requested those calls when he flipped 101.9 from AOR to soft rock in 1989. It was supposed to mean "K-Lite".
Click to expand...
Oh, I believe it. My suspicion is that he didn't draw the obvious association of the KLIT call letters until too late. For that matter, it used to be that the FCC didn't approve "indecent" call signs, so apparently no one at the FCC came up with that association, either.
 
TexasTom said:
Stations used to care, but that was many years ago.

Back in the day, a new format usually meant new call letters to go with a new station identity. Now they just change the station's nickname or slogan and leave the call letters unchanged. For example, Star 102.1 here in Dallas/Fort Worth still has the KDGE call letters from their days as The Edge, and Alt 103.7 still carries the KVIL call letters that were synonymous with the AC format around here for decades. And it's not just the Dallas area -- WLTJ in Pittsburgh, PA has called themselves Q92.9 for years without ever bothering to change to call letters that actually contain the letter Q.
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Why should a station care about a set of letters said hurriedly once per hour, often buried in a stopset?

Of course, I manage to do both in Albuquerque -- we identify both by the format's name and the call letters. And the reason for doing so is that KRKE is a heritage set of calls (they were on the dominant top-40 in the market, on 610, back in the day).
 
TexasTom said:
Oh, I believe it. My suspicion is that he didn't draw the obvious association of the KLIT call letters until too late. For that matter, it used to be that the FCC didn't approve "indecent" call signs, so apparently no one at the FCC came up with that association, either.
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You may already know this, but the administration at University of North Texas, in our own neck o' the woods, didn't have their own front porch lights burning very brightly when they requested the first call set for KNTU, either.
 
radiofan2023 said:
Nothing is going to “make” people care. Go ask 10 people what their favorite current radio station’s call letters are. I bet you either most or all of them have no idea.
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That might change, if ever there was an operation willing to push the envelope with a KCUF-assigned facility where the station's slogan is "At <insert frequency> KCUF, everything's backwards including our name!"
 
TexasTom said:
Oh, I believe it. My suspicion is that he didn't draw the obvious association of the KLIT call letters until too late. For that matter, it used to be that the FCC didn't approve "indecent" call signs, so apparently no one at the FCC came up with that association, either.
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I had several long conferences with that manager while the "lease to buy" LMA was being done with Cecil Heftel. He knew what the letters meant when spoken as a single word. But to him, with the hyphen, it was Kay-Lite.

The same manager told us in no uncertain terms that there was no way we would do any better with that low power signal than the one-share range they got with the alternative format. Of course, in our first book we took it to #1 with about a 6 share.

What was kinda' sad is that the Alt format studios, on the road that led to the entrance to Forest Lawn, had a number of drywall constructed walls covered with autographs and phrases from that format's biggest artists. I hope someone took them apart and has them as the wall to their den or garage or whatever.
 
rosecitymedia said:
You may already know this, but the administration at University of North Texas, in our own neck o' the woods, didn't have their own front porch lights burning very brightly when they requested the first call set for KNTU, either.
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I heard that, too. But later I was told that this is urban legend and nobody could be that dumb.
 
davideduardo said:
I heard that, too. But later I was told that this is urban legend and nobody could be that dumb.
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I've heard that story told many times over the years, and maybe it is just simple fabrication to get a good laugh from the boys, but this is U-NT we're talking about, so you just never can be too sure. 😆
 
The WKRP sitcom has not withstood the test of time.

Despite a proliferation of classic TV diginets & FAST streaming channels, it's been years since I last stumbled across the show.

I suspect the vast majority of people under the age of 50 have never even heard of the series. I suspect the calls would be of absolutely zero value to any radio station unless perhaps if the station is located in the Cincinnati area.

A Variety Hits station with sarcastic & witty voiceovers might pair well with the WKRP calls if used in the Cincy region.
 
MarkW said:
The WKRP sitcom has not withstood the test of time.

Despite a proliferation of classic TV diginets & FAST streaming channels, it's been years since I last stumbled across the show.
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The last place I saw it OTA was on MeTV, and that was several years ago. Sadly, it was the version with a lot of the original music replaced ... a victim of the licensing rules for shows shot on videotape (as opposed to film).

I have a bootleg set of the series, which I got from someone who worked at a television station back in the day when the original music was in the syndicated release. He had dubbed them to VHS at the highest resolution and (years later) burned his tapes to DVD.
 
Indeed, WKRP aired on MeTV starting in spring 2018. I think it only lasted a year or so before being dropped. It didn't even get demoted from prime time (9:30 ET) to an off prime hour, it got dropped completely.
 
TexasTom said:
Stations used to care, but that was many years ago.

Back in the day, a new format usually meant new call letters to go with a new station identity. Now they just change the station's nickname or slogan and leave the call letters unchanged. For example, Star 102.1 here in Dallas/Fort Worth still has the KDGE call letters from their days as The Edge, and Alt 103.7 still carries the KVIL call letters that were synonymous with the AC format around here for decades. And it's not just the Dallas area -- WLTJ in Pittsburgh, PA has called themselves Q92.9 for years without ever bothering to change to call letters that actually contain the letter Q.
Click to expand...
Call letters only matter for one major purpose nowadays...

That's what national ad buyers see on a spreadsheet when making determinations on what stations to buy ads on... Calls get changed (at least in big markets) when a station wants to refresh its perception to buyers.

Back when the Entercom purchase of CBS closed in 2017, a false pretense was used by the Chicago management to get the WBMX call letters moved from 104.1 Boston to 104.3 Chicago. That move ended up costing the Boston station revenue as the buyers thought WWBX was a new station. With the demise of the Classic Hip Hop format in Chicago last month, the calls were moved back to the Boston station from whence they came, but now risk doing the same thing.
 
yeoldeschool said:
The FCC should simply allow for longer, all-alpha callsigns in broadcasting. KLITE, KPOWER, KEARTH, KOAST, KROCK. The initial emphasis on short call signs (three letters) was undoubtedly rooted in non-broadcast licensees and the need for brevity with Morse code (e.g. Q-codes like QSL). The fourth letter, of course, only begrudgingly came along in response to exhausting all permutations of the three letter system. But post-morse code, there's simply no reason for extreme brevity.

In fact, this is already being done with all the long alphanumeric call signs in use for translators. So yeah, why not open things up for equally long, all-alpha call signs...
Click to expand...
They do that in Mexico, as well as in Canada with the CBC's French-language TV stations. I think it'd actually work out well if the FCC were to try it out, since it would allow for more available callsigns for stations.
 


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