When you open up a new radio or TV station, do you have any choice in the call letters you’re assigned (beyond the K— west of the Mississippi, W---- east of the Mississippi standard, that is)?
For example, Denver’s Fox affiliate is KDVR, which pretty obviously (to me, at least) references the letters in the word DenVeR, so I’m assuming that it was intentional.
But the vast majority of stations’ call letters seem to be random: Saint Louis’ ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox affiliates are KDNL, KSDK, KMOV and KTVI, respectively. Other than the letters T and V in our Fox affiliate (which very well could have been coincidental), I’m not seeing any rhyme or reason.
When I fill out my application for my own radio station, can I ask for specific call letters?
Also, are some call letter combinations forbidden? Could I take WEED (east of the linear swamp) or KIEF (west of the linear swamp)?
I know it used to be that you could choose the letters, but it may have changed. The NBC affiliate here is WCSH, CSH for the Congress Square Hotel, the building their antenna was on when they first started.
In the amateur (ham) radio world, call signs at the licensee’s request are called vanity calls. I hold an Extra license and am eligible for a vanity call but haven’t gotten around to it. The competition for desirable calls is quite fierce.
You can ask for any 4-letter set that is not already in use. I presume he FCC would deny any call letters that they feld were offensive. Three letter sets are no longer issued, but stations that have them are grandfathered. The same goes for K or W calls on the wrong side of he Mississippi River. But apparently, you have to read the fine print carefully when applying for license renewao. KOB in Albuquerque failed to specify a a retention to the 3-letter call, and wound up with a renewal that changed their call to KKOB, and there was nothing they could do about it.
This is regulated by international treaty. I think all stations have a unique international call, with a specified letter or pair of letters at the beginning for each country. but in most countries they do not use them to publicly identify the station. Canada used C, with the second letter B,F,H,I,J,K. A few retain VO calls letters in Newfoundland. Mexico is all XE, but had to expand to 5-digit names. Australia’s begin with a numeral, then two letters.
In St. Louis, at least, there was once some rhyme and reason.
KSDK (originally KSD-TV) and KMOV (originally KMOX-TV) started out as the TV arms of local radio stations. They both changed the last letters in their call signs when the stations were sold to new owners, and the radio stations elected to keep the original call letters for themselves.
The history of KTVI doesn’t say, but there’s speculation the I might have stood for “Independent” – or maybe when the owns got the TV letters, they took whatever letter was left.
KDNL may or may not have chosen its call letters to make people associate it with KDNA-FM, a well-known local radio station at the time.
You didn’t mention three other stations. The PBS station, KETC; was simply the Educational Television Channel. KPLR’s original owner was Harold KoPLar. WRBU was one of several stations started by Roberts Broadcasting; the U probably came from its affiliation with the UPN network.
Nearly all stations have some rhyme or reason, althugh were probbly a few that just accepted the call randomly assigned to them. One novel one was WXIX im Milwaukee on Channel 19. Station owner Jimmie Noe owned WNOE in New Orleans and KNOE in Monroe LA. Warner Brothers studios once owned KDWB, KEWB and KFWB. WARE is in Ware, MA. WIND is in the Windy City, and WOKY in Milwaukee. KING and Seattle are both in King County. KOOL and KOLD were owned by the same company in Phoenix and Tucson.
Sometimes, call letter are sold. The engineering pioneer in Hunsville AL only played classical music on his WFUN, and retired on what he got by selling his call letters so a Miami station that thought they were good for their image.
A while back someone claimed the letter Q was easy to remember so a lot of stations put Q in their call letters. That was a fad that lasted a few years.
Q was a popular radio format in the 1970s and 80s, and a lot of the stations using that format changed their call letters.
It would be a rare station (at least after 1930) that didn’t specifically request its call letters. As mentioned, call letters are regularly changed for marketing reasons, and sold to folks who covet them. Back in the days of diaries for radio ratings, a lot of thought went into such things, and into figuring out how to ensure that listeners knew what to write in the diaries.
Until 1987 the FCC vetted call signs, and requested changes were publicized, to give other stations a chance to challenge them. (I remember one case in Washington, DC where WMOD successfully blocked another station’s request to change its call to WMET, on the grounds that the new call was too similar.)
However, in 1987 call signs were almost completely deregulated. If you think a call is obscene or inappropriate you have to go through the courts – the FCC won’t get involved. (In 1987 the FCC noted that in the case of an objectionable call you could try to convince the court that it violated “community standards”.)
I don’t know of any time when a case has gone to the courts, but there have been at least two times when it was threatened. In 1986 a Philadelphia station changed its call to WPTS, and a nearby Trenton station, WPST, got them to change it to WPHT. In 1994, a Chester, Pennsylvania station changed its call to WAWA, and the Wawa convenience stores threatened legal action, so the station quickly became WPWA.
KKOB dates back to 1986. A that time only co-owned stations could have the same base call. So when the TV station was sold, it was agreed that it could continue to be KOB, while the AM and FM stations changed to KKOB.
A lot of things were deregulated in the 80s for radio and TV. Which is why we have morons like Clear Channel owning 850 or so radio stations. The limit used to be under 20.