Wsb id change

[Cave Man 77]

Has anyone noticed: WSB has inserted the word NEWS into its ID: Now saying "NEWS 95.5 and AM 750 WSB" Is this some kind of sign that soon they will keep news on 95.5 and program something
entirely different on AM 750? This began today, and I wonder if any of you have information about this new
ID.

 

[Ryan Williams]

It looks like their logo was updated as well. It now reads NEWS 95.5 AM 750 WSB. I guess the FM is understood. The logo on Facebook was uploaded around 6 this morning.

Cox's WDBO in Orlando is branded as NEWS 96.5 even though it is mostly talk just like WSB. I don't think they are considering splitting the simulcast nor do I think branding tweak foreshadows any significant programming changes at AM 750 and NOW 95.5 FM.

 

[jabba17]

My guess is to compete with AN106.7 better.

 

[gr8oldies]

Cox sister WHIO is going by News 95.7 and ignoring 1290. It still takes both signals for full market coverage

 

[day1radio]

No TALK?

WSB has always been News/Talk, but now they've dropped the Talk and the FM. Nice and clean, but not as descriptive!

Has anyone noticed: WSB has inserted the word NEWS into its ID: Now saying "NEWS 95.5 and AM 750 WSB" Is this some kind of sign that soon they will keep news on 95.5 and program something
entirely different on AM 750? This began today, and I wonder if any of you have information about this new
ID.

 

[kf4rca]

What I don't understand is why they identify as "Doraville" as that is not a market. Besides, Doraville is a skanky little town. Maybe it has something to do with the song and Atlanta Rhythm Section being somewhat famous.

 

[Unregistered]

Doraville is the city of license for the FM WSBB, simple as that, which legal ID is required once per hour, no different from WSTR Smryna Atlanta.

 

[secondchoice]

What I don't understand is why they identify as "Doraville" as that is not a market. Besides, Doraville is a skanky little town. Maybe it has something to do with the song and Atlanta Rhythm Section being somewhat famous.

95.5' "city of license" is Doraville. The FCC requires a "legal" ID (Call letters followed by the city of license) at near the beginning of each hour. In theory 95.5 is assigned to give Doraville "radio service". If you look at the public files there should be something about WSSB providing some kind of programming "targeted" for the City of Doraville. These programs usually is some kind of public affairs hour or half hour aired at 5 or 6 AM Sunday morning.

Some other "Atlanta" stations which have a non Atlanta COL: 94.1 WSTR Symrna, 96.7 WRDG Peachtree City, 97.1 WSRV & WYAY both with a COL of Gainesville, 100.5 WNNX College Park, 97.5 WMUJ Fayetteville.

There are a bunch of other non Atlanta COL that are counted as part of the market:

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/locate?select=city&city=30303&x=0&y=0&sid=

The "City" column is the City of license on the chart at the above link .

 

[Avid Listener]

95.5' "city of license" is Doraville.

It's even worse in some other markets. Some Metropolitan Statistical Areas have even more dinky little independent municipalities masquerading as the "City of License" than Atlanta!

 

[jabba17]

It's even worse in some other markets. Some Metropolitan Statistical Areas have even more dinky little independent municipalities masquerading as the "City of License" than Atlanta!

WPZE has a CoL of unincorporated Mableton, and my "favorite" is WCNN 680, which has a CoL of North Atlanta, which was disincorporated in the 1960s before the station even came on the air, and re-incorporated as Brookhaven only last year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookhaven,_Georgia

WSBB's CoL used to be Athens before Cox got it moved to Doraville as part of a possible eventual planned move-in.

 

[davideduardo]

What I don't understand is why they identify as "Doraville" as that is not a market. Besides, Doraville is a skanky little town. Maybe it has something to do with the song and Atlanta Rhythm Section being somewhat famous.

That question is related to the FCC's 90-year focus on giving local service to every community it can. Applicants for decades used the "first local service" excuse to locate stations near larger towns and cities to wedge another station onto the dial. In a simplified version, you couldn't get a new station for Podunk, but you could for E. Podunk.

Then, about 25 years ago, a famous case involving a station midway between two cities nudged the FCC to allow changes in cities of license and classes of service. So suddenly it became relatively easy to move from a small market to the edge of a big one, often moving to one of those "unserved" communities.

And that is why most larger markets have many stations licensed to both the close-in and even the rural suburbs ringing the central city.

 

[davideduardo]

It's even worse in some other markets. Some Metropolitan Statistical Areas have even more dinky little independent municipalities masquerading as the "City of License" than Atlanta!

Serving a metro from a suburb has been common since the 40's. The only thing that has changed is that we have about 15 times as many stations now as we did in 1940.

And it's not restricted to defined metros or even large metros, either.

 

[secondchoice]

It's been also 45 years since I started in radio, but I remember along with the half hour that meter readings, the news intro for the half hour "headlines" had an ID (and sponsorship) built in it and I checked the ID box on the program log of course that might have been for the sponsorship.

 

[ContinuousWave]

Has anyone noticed: WSB has inserted the word NEWS into its ID: Now saying "NEWS 95.5 and AM 750 WSB" Is this some kind of sign that soon they will keep news on 95.5 and program something
entirely different on AM 750? This began today, and I wonder if any of you have information about this new
ID.

Thats just a sweeper, NOT an ID...the legal TOH would ID each station by callsign (with channel number or freq in the middle optional) and then COL...

 

[kf4rca]

Now if WSBB-FM were to provide programming targeted to Doraville, wouldn't that be in Spanish???

 

[Avid Listener]

Now if WSBB-FM were to provide programming targeted to Doraville, wouldn't that be in Spanish???

Either that or Korean.

 

[Avid Listener]

Serving a metro from a suburb has been common since the 40's. The only thing that has changed is that we have about 15 times as many stations now as we did in 1940.

And it's not restricted to defined metros or even large metros, either.

There's a lot more to it than that. The coverage area of most radio station signals is usually an order of magnitude larger than just the little municipal entity that is the official "City of License". If WSB were to only concentrate on Doraville (for example), something like 90% of their signal coverage would be going to waste.

But then there's the issue of "Metropolitan consolidation", which was a big movement in local politics in many places. There are still many cities like Chicago or Pittsburgh which are surrounded by many, many little independent municipalities. Back in the 1920's, Pittsburgh went on a consolidation spree, and integrated many independent boroughs and townships into the formal "City of Pittsburgh". But then the movement fizzled out, and they still have something like over 100 distinct, separate municipal government entities in the Great Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical area. Compare that to Indianapolis, where the city government and the county government are consolidated into one single, metropolitan entity.

If Atlanta had embraced metropolitanism the way Indianapolis did, WSB's city of license would be Atlanta. Doraville would only exist as the name of a neighborhood within the City of Atlanta.

 

[kf4rca]

Some Breaking News

Have you heard that the FCC is "considering" a proposed rule making, requiring Engilsh speaking radio & TV stations, to broadcast emergency messages in Spanish also?
No word on whether Spanish stations will be required to broadcast emergency messages in English.

 

[jabba17]

Have you heard that the FCC is "considering" a proposed rule making, requiring Engilsh speaking radio & TV stations, to broadcast emergency messages in Spanish also?
No word on whether Spanish stations will be required to broadcast emergency messages in English.

I know US Spanish-language stations can do their legal TOH IDs en espanol solamente, e.g., "ubeh-dobleh beh zeta ee-griega efeh emeh, Bowdon" and not "double-you bee zee wye eff em, Bowdon".

Compare Mexican English-language stations have to do their TOH IDs en espanol, e.g., "equis eh teh ere ah, Baja California, Meheeco" and not "ecks ee tee are ay, Baja California, Mecksico"

 

[davideduardo]

I know US Spanish-language stations can do their legal TOH IDs en espanol solamente

That is a fairly recent enforcement relaxation. Through the 90's everywhere I worked on the mainland believed that the Legal had to be done in English.

OTOH, in Puerto Rico where I worked for the better part of 3 decades, we were given an exception via a ruling somewhere back in the 50's that either English or Spanish could be used in accordance with the dual official language statutes of the Commonwealth.

I used this at one point for San Juan's first "rimshot" which was licensed to Fajardo, a small town to the east of San Juan. We did the ID in English to minimize its notability and then added "Y-96" in Spanish.

Compare Mexican English-language stations have to do their TOH IDs en espanol,

Unlike the US, Mexico has an official language, Spanish. And semi-official languages like Náhuatl. In fact, the government of Mexico recognizes 68 distinct indigenous Amerindian languages... none of which are English, of course.

So, while a station can ID in Náhuatl, it can not ID in English any more than a station in New York city can ID in Russian. Spanish, on the other hand, is spoken by about 40 million US Hispanics in the 50 states and Puerto Rico.