Serious question...what is hard about putting up call letters & city?

Question

This is a serious question for this area. Not trying to put anyone or any thing down. Nor am I going to single out a specific radio station. Read carefully before you answer.

There are questions about radio stations (mainly US and Canadian) that only use an identifier (ex: Z-100, Power 96, 95 Kiss, etc.) but are only listed as an identifier but NOT with the city or call letters (eg. WTER, KSSR). There are questions about contests in here that don't note the station conducting this as well.

Being that you have the WORLD reading these questions along with tons of stations using the same identifier in different cities, it is hard for those first reading the question to really know how to help you out.

I was recently "called out" regarding one of these stations by a poster. I am not trying to be a "cabal" but I do like this board and putting cities helps make things consistent. Is there any difficulty to this? Serious well thought answer gets my 10.

Tony S.

Answer 1

You have to remember that many posing the questions are tween and teens (But I've caught a few adults) who don't think about how far the yahoo answers go out.. they have only heard of their Kiss FM instead of say KIIS or KHKS.

But yes it would help with the location. (PLEASE GIVE A CITY LOCATION!)  Sometimes I get lucky and figure it out from a web search.. but usually I come up with two or three answers and will answer with either the biggest market or multiple station answers.

Stations only have to ID legally once a hour, so unless the call letters are used in the ID, Most won't know that KIIS is the call sign to Kiss 102.7 in LA that we have many questions about on here (another is all the radio Disney questions)

I'm a radio nut who's into all areas of the radio broadcasting so it's easier for me to research the callsign.... I got friends listening to stations for a year and won't know the callsign.

But yeah in some areas such as this one, we should have a community set of rules (such as where are you in the world)

Answer 2

As per FCC regulations, stations *must* state their call letters, frequency and broadcast city.

I think it's mandatory that they do it once an hour or something.

Sometimes they'll stop the music, stop the ads, and stop the promos and say it in plain English - usually a recording.

If it happens during a morning show, or a time when there are jocks in the station, they will sometimes actually *say* it.

Most often, however, the call letters will be mixed in with some jingle or slogan. You just gotta listen.

It will happen eventually, but radio stations probably don't *want* to interrupt their barrage of advertising just to kindly inform you what their call letters are, so that's why some stick to the minimum FCC mandate.

- Of course stations can do it as many times as they want, and I've seen (heard) this as well.

But I agree, it is frustrating!

- I don't normally stray into this category, but I certainly take no offense with your question.

Answer 3

When I was into logging radio stations it would bug me no end that stations would go hours without ever identifying themselves properly (letters and city). Now days, they spend so much time and money on catch-phrase identity ("Power 96" to use your example), that everyone involved has probably forgotten that they even have real call letters.  

And everyone is so Balkanized, despite our so-called "global economy", that radio listeners and broadcasters aren't even conscious of an outside world.  I had a call once from a couple who said they were calling from "Moscow."  My experience alone prompted me to ask what state. "Idaho" was the casual reply.  It all reminds me of the newspaper boy who introduced himself to a prospective customer as Thomas Jefferson.  The customer said, "That's certainly a well-known name!"  And the boy said, "It ought to be.  I've had this same route for three years!"

Patience is not just a virtue.  It's a requirement.