Do the call letters of a radio or tv station?

Question

mean anything? Or are they just letters and numbers picked out of the air?

Answer 1

The stations get to choose their call sign so it CAN mean something to them. This helps with "branding" and marketing.

Not sure if you are in the USA but here we use K(West of the Mississippi), W(East of the Mississippi).

An example is WCBS which refers to CBS.

Here is some info on it from the NFCB

http://www.nfcb.org/projects/lpfm/lpfm_a...

Answer 2

All stations east of the Mississippi have a "W" at the start of the call letters.

All stations west of the Mississippi have a "K" at the start of the call letters.

Two stations cannot all the same letters in the same order.  It's up to the owner of the station to make up the call sign and for the FCC to approve them.

Answer 3

Generally the first call letter used to refer to which side of the Mississippi River the transmitter was located: "K" for west of the Mississippi and "W" for east of the Mississippi, such as KABC or WABC. Not sure about how the other three letters are chosen.