We have “The River,” “Kiss,” “The Point,” “Froggy*,” and “Wink” (some justification, since they’re WNYQ).
*Where they plunk their magic twangers, evidently.
We have “The River,” “Kiss,” “The Point,” “Froggy*,” and “Wink” (some justification, since they’re WNYQ).
*Where they plunk their magic twangers, evidently.
There’s 94.3 WJLK “The Point”
88.9 - WMCX “The X” college radio
90.5 - WBJB “The Night” named after their more popular night programming
98.5 - “The Buzz”
101.5 - WKXW “New Jersey 101.5”
95.9 - WRAT “The Rat” - yeah, it sucks as much as their nickname
107.1 - WWZY “The Breeze” supposedly named because it was a block from the water.
We have a “Wink” around here, too: WINC, in Winchester. I guess they came by the dumb name honestly.
I’ve noticed a trend of getting away from call letters and just using a person’s name. Others have mentioned “Jack” and “George”. I’ve encountered an “Abe” (Springfield, IL - kinda makes sense) and a “Mike” (someplace in Missouri).
WLUP gets a free pass on this as they’ve called themselves “The Loop” for oh, the past forty years or so. Compare that to the new kids on the dial that are lucky to last forty weeks before someone buys and re-names them.
The Jack and Bob style named stations are a just another gimmick. They play a random variety of music. I believe the idea was to counter or mimic the shuffle feature of one’s mp3 player.
One of my favorites in high school was 106.7, The Beaver. They played grunge and alternative and made the most out of their name. Later on people protested so they created a bunch of ads mocking them and changed their name to The Rooster. “We are now the biggest COCK in the radio henhouse.” Priceless to a seventeen year old.
Here’s what we’ve got in Nashville:
90.3- WPLN, broadcasting NPR
94.1- WRLG, formerly The One, now The Fish, broacasting Christian rock (it used be Thunder 94, the sister station to Lightning 100. They played excellent early 90’s alternative back in the day.)
95.5- WSM, The Wolf. I wasn’t aware we had this until I looked it up. Country, obviously.
97.9- WSIX, The Big 98. Oldies, I think.
99.7- WWTN, Super Talk. Home of Phil Valentine and Gerry House.
100.1- WRLT, Lightning 100. One of my faves. Contemporary alternative, jazz, blues, lots of live stuff and good specialty shows including Elwood Blues’ show.
We’ve got The Buzz, The Zone, The Fan, The Rock, The River. Blech. I miss The Beaver.
Radio station names are so predictable.
[ul]
[li]Hot, Kiss: pop music appealing to young women.[/li][li]Wolf, Bear, Hawk, Eagle, Fox: mullet rock or country.[/li][li]Fish, Spirit: Jesus rock.[/li][li]Mix. Magic: boring “play it at work!” station appealing to women.[/li][li]Lite: see “Mix”, but even duller.[/li][li]Ranch, Country, Farm: do you even have to ask?[/li][li]Wave: smooth jazz. “Lite” for yuppies.[/li][li]Edge: alternative rock appealing to younger men. X-TREME!!![/li][li]Jack, Doug, Bob, other one-syllable male names: shuffle mix.[/li][li]Hank: see above, but country.[/li][li]River, Mountain, Valley, Peak, Lake, Bay, Planet: singer/songwriter, acoustic and folk rock.[/li][li]Wild, Beat, Power, Jamz: Rap and hip-hop.[/li]li Rock, FM (number): long-established album rock station, playlist unchanged since 1983.[/li][li]Q-(number), Z-(number), X-(number), K-(number): in the 1970s and 1980s, strictly album-oriented rock. Today, it could be anything.[/li][li]Anything screamed at top volume, reverb on 11, and sound clips of braying donkeys in the background: Norteno.[/li][/ul]
We have a big country station here which goes by “The Bull,” and another I think smaller, less ratings station which uses “The Bear.”
Every time I see ads for one or the other, or both, I envision the stock market. Not what they intended, I assume.