Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!sun-barr!texsun!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: dmr@csli.stanford.edu (Daniel M. Rosenberg) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Radio Station Names (Wxxx - Kxxx) Message-ID: Date: 5 Sep 89 20:17:33 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U. Lines: 33 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 353, message 4 of 9 vrdxhq!escom.com!al@uunet.uu.net (Al Donaldson) writes: >In article , (Paolo Bellutta) >writes: >...over the past several years there seems to be a trend of replacing >the legal call letters with catch-phrases and names that will appeal >to the audience, e.g., "COOL", "ROCK", "EASY". Now this has always >It seems that call letters are rarely used anymore, except perhaps >when filing to the FCC for a license renewal :-). I'm pretty sure that stations can call themselves anything they want most of the time, except for their top-of-the-hour legal ID. Every station *has* to give a legal ID at the top of the hour, and that is (invariably, I think) the call letters and transmitter location. For instance, K-ROCK in New York (an offshoot of Infinity Broadcasting's KROQ in Los Angeles, I believe) calls itself K-ROCK over and over again. "92.3 K-ROCK," "K-ROCK New York." But, at the top of the hour (+/- 5 minutes) they always say, somewhat sheepishly, "This is W-X-R-K, New York." At our radio station, I can -- and frequently do -- call it anything I want for station ID's. "This is Postmodern 90.1" or "You're attuned to FM 90.1, Stanford University." But at the top of the hour, I *have* to say, "KZSU, Stanford." Dan -- # Daniel M. Rosenberg // Stanford CSLI // Eat my opinions, not Stanford's. # dmr@csli.stanford.edu // decwrl!csli!dmr // dmr%csli@stanford.bitnet