In Boston there’s a broadcaster that’s a letter shy of the usual complement: WBZ radio and television. Why only three letters? Because that callsign was assigned way back in the Dark Ages of broadcasting, when three letters provided enough combinations for everyone to get one.
The theory and practice of call letter assignment are discussed in excruciating depth here.
More three-letter call letters: WGN and WLS in Chicago, WHA in Madison, Wis.
[QUOTE=Ferd Burfel]
Someone at the FCC needs a dictionary…
[/QUOTE]
Because they would find something in the dictionary under “KUNT”?
[QUOTE=Walloon]
More three-letter call letters: WGN and WLS in Chicago, WHA in Madison, Wis.
[/QUOTE]
WGN stands for World’s Greatest Newspaper, being a TRIBUNE company. I’ve heard that WLS stands for World’s Largest Store from a previous connection to Sears, but don’t know if that’s true
[QUOTE=Charlie Tan]
WGN stands for World’s Greatest Newspaper, being a TRIBUNE company. I’ve heard that WLS stands for World’s Largest Store from a previous connection to Sears, but don’t know if that’s true
[/QUOTE]
'Tis true, according to the link I posted.
[QUOTE=Walloon]
Because they would find something in the dictionary under “KUNT”?
[/QUOTE]
Maybe they need a Klingon dictionary.
[QUOTE=Walloon]
More three-letter call letters: WGN and WLS in Chicago, WHA in Madison, Wis.
[/QUOTE]
While we’re counting: WWL in New Orleans, both radio and TV (CBS affiliate).
More call-sign trivia:
In the US there are two stations that spell out the city from which they are broadcast:
WACO (TX)
WARE (MA)
[QUOTE=anyrose]
with one notable exception in Pittsburgh PA - America’s first commercial radio station - KDKA - which launched Nov 2, 1920.
[/QUOTE]
There’s also KYW in Philadelphia.
Robin
[QUOTE=panamajack]
No, but the now-gone Bay area station KOME used to have ads saying things like, “Get some KOME in your ear”. (KOIT has long been a mostly soft-rock station that wouldn’t go for stuff like that).
[/QUOTE]
And “Don’t touch that dial, its got KOME on it”.
Just an update. The airwaves are safe again.
[QUOTE=Ferd Burfel]
I’m speechless.
[/QUOTE]
You’re really surprised that they’d have a problem with call letters that are phonetically the same as what many consider to be the most offensive word in the language?
If it were up to me, the FCC would have nothing to do with obscenity and just regulate frequencies, but as long as they are in the naughty word business it seems a slam dunk they wouldn’t let this one fly, even though “cunt” is not normally spelled with a ‘k’.
WGY in Schenectady. “G for the first letter in ‘General Electric,’ Y for the last letter in ‘Schenectady.’”
There also used to be WOR in New York, but they changed a few years ago to WWOR.
Is there some double entendre in WGY?
[QUOTE=Revtim]
You’re really surprised that they’d have a problem with call letters that are phonetically the same as what many consider to be the most offensive word in the language?
If it were up to me, the FCC would have nothing to do with obscenity and just regulate frequencies, but as long as they are in the naughty word business it seems a slam dunk they wouldn’t let this one fly, even though “cunt” is not normally spelled with a ‘k’.
[/QUOTE]
His surprise was that they did let it fly, at least temporarily.
WSB, a radio and TV station here in Atlanta, got started in 1922. Its letters originally stood for “Welcome, Southern Brothers.” Obviously that was a very different time.
Complementary to KDKA in Pittsburgh (east of the Mississippi), isn’t there also a “W” spy in the “K” camp?
And, I really don’t see the problem with KWTF. It’s an oblique reference, and I suspect the people who’d get it wouldn’t be bothered by it.
I’ve posted this before, in other call letter threads, but my alma mater’s student radio station is KUMM, and one of the commercial stations in town is KKOK (start with the second ‘K’).
While I was a student, I used to be a DJ on the college station (I think I still could, now that I am back in town). We used all of the same ‘funny’ lines as used above for KOME, but for me, none of them ever topped “The only radio station to put KUMM in your mom”. Oh, and our intramural softball team (which had one win, when the other team failed to show) was called ‘The Screamin’ Seamen’, with a neat logo of a screaming softball with an interesting tail.
[QUOTE=yoyodyne]
His surprise was that they did let it fly, at least temporarily.
[/QUOTE]
Do’h! :smack: That makes more sense…
There used to be a KASH somewhere in Iowa; a station in Anchorage uses that now.
[QUOTE=Fiver]
Complementary to KDKA in Pittsburgh (east of the Mississippi), isn’t there also a “W” spy in the “K” camp?
[/QUOTE]
You mean other than WACO? 
WKY in Oklahoma City. It’s both a W station in the K region, and a three-letter call.
WKY used to have an AM broadcast, an FM broadcast, and a television station.
The FM station only lasted a few years.
They sold the TV station off awhile back and had to change those call letters, so now there’s just the AM radio station left.