February 26, 2016
It’s
been a while since my last edition of Readers Revenge, a time when you
get to add to the conversation either covering things I missed or want
to embellish.
As
it turns out, call letters mean a lot to you as they do me, and quite a
few responses came in with call letter meanings as well as stories of
early broadcasting. Some of the meanings mentioned:
KUSC
- broadcasting form the University of Southern California, which reader
Bill Cosso claims has broadcast classical music since it went on the
air.
KGIL - named after original owner Gil Paltridge, says legendary programmer and DJ Chuck Southcott.
KECA
- Earle C. Anthony, who owned what would later become KABC (790 AM),
which itself is named after its later owner, the American Broadcasting
Company. Thanks, George Lee of La Crescenta.
Adding
to the KECA story is Steve Thompson of Glendale, who writes, “In 1929,
Earle C. Anthony, a Packard automobile distributor and founder/owner of
KFI, bought KPLA (1430 AM) and changed the call letters to KECA, after
his initials. Ten years later he bought KEHE-780 from the Evening
Herald-Express newspaper. He promptly took the station off the air
and moved KECA to 780. Anthony then moved the studios of KFI and KECA
from his Packard dealership in Los Angeles to the former KEHE studios at
141 North Vermont. KECA moved to 790 in 1941 and today is KABC.” A
complicated story, essentially confirmed by longtime reader of my
column, George Schwenk.
Don
Ward added a few: KJLH (originally on AM): John Lamar Hill; KMGM -
owned by Metro Goldwin Mayer film studios, later to become KCBH -
Crawford’s Beverly Hills (music store) and eventually KJOI - for the
obvious K-Joy; KOCS - Ontario City Service; KSOM - Sound of (beautiful)
Music.
KMAX
- named after the owner, Max (and MaryAnn) ... “can;t remember their
last names,” said Deanne Davis of Sierra Madre. Dacis and her husband
John lauched a station in yucca Valley from 1988 to 1994 called KROR ...
“The Mighty Roar of the desert.”
KPOP - The Popular Station, submitted by Phil Keosababian. KPOP was the original call sign for what later became KGRB and KTNQ.
KFWB
- “Keep Filming Warner Brothers” or something related to “Westinghouse
Broadcasting,” as both companies were owners at one time or another.
Turns out to be more mundane - random sequential letters, says
Wikipedia.
Joe
McDonald of Whittier asked if three-call letter combinations were meant
for “clear channel” stations, those with no other stations on the same
frequency that cover large areas of the United States.Locally, KFI (640
AM) and KNX (1070 AM) are clear channel stations. Alas, while a good
theory, it turns out that there were four-letter clears as well as
three-letters that were not. KHJ (930 AM), for example, is not a clear
channel. Three-letters were just what was issued in the early days of
broadcasting.
Cory
Moore of Compton noted a mis-spelling ... Auburn automobiles are
spelled with a “u,” not with an “o” as wrote with Auborn ... I’m going
to pretend I did that on purpose.
Next week: some interesting information on early FM broadcasting, including the problems with early stereo.
February 19, 2016
Kindness,
Happiness and Joy. George B Storer. Ten-Q. “Kiss-FM.” Power 106. What
do all of these have in common? They are all “names” for stations, or
more accurately, variations of their call letters.
Well, sort of.
I’m
a call-letter guy, in the sense that I like when stations use their
given call letters instead of a generic name that can be heard anywhere.
But that idea tends to get lost as marketing managers do anything they
can to stand out, even if standing out means being a carbon-copy of your
co-owned station in Atlanta. Or San Diego. Or Pittsburg. Or all of the
above.
But
call letters have a certain mystic, due mainly to the fact that only
one AM, FM or television station can have the same call sign. Anywhere.
For example while you can find “My FM,” (one of the top winners in the
stupid name contest) in Los Angeles; Independence, Kansas; Chicago,
Illinois; or even Idaho Falls, Idaho, there is only KBIG-FM.
So what do call letters mean? And why?
First,
the basics. In the United States, call signs begin with the letter K, W
or N. N is reserved for military and government use, so we are left
with K, generally for stations West of the Mississippi River and W for
those East. But it wasn’t always that way: prior to January, 1923 the
dividing line was the Eastern borders of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming,
and Montana. And the rule was not always fully enforced anyway, so there
are some Eastern K stations and Western W stations, though few and far
between. According to mentalfloss.com,
the most Eastern of the Ks is KYW/Philadelphia, still using the same
call sign, and the most Western W station was WLAY/Fairbanks Alaska,
which broadcast in 1922 and ’23.
Three
letter call signs were all issued in order, similar to ho license
plates are issued for cars. Originally, four-letter calls were issued in
the same way ... KDKA followed by KDKB, then KDKC, etc. Soon the
Federal Radio Commission, precursor to the Federal Communications
Commission, allowed stations to request specific call letter
combinations, and that’s when the real name game began. And while the
original assignment for three-letter calls was arbitrary, after the
requests were allowed, stations could request three-letter combos as
they became available.
And
even the arbitrary letters had marketing meaning ... old timers may
remember when KHJ used the slogan Knowledge, Happiness and Judgement; or
later Kindness, Happiness and Joy. Supposedly, KFI stood for Farm
Information, but like KHJ and KNX, the KFI calls were issued randomly.
Other meanings, for stations that may or may not still exist locally:
KGFJ - Keeping Good Folks Joyful
KMPC - MacMillan Petroleum Company
KFAC - Fuller, Auborn and Cord (automobile dealershios owned by station owner E. L. Cord)
KGBS - George B. Storer
KIIS
- Not “kiss” but instead “K Double-I S,” chosen because the letter IIS
look like 115, the AM frequency that once was the home of the station.
KFSG - Four Square Gospel church.
KPPC - Pasadena Presbyterian Church.
KPCC - Pasadena City College.
KRLA - Radio Los Angeles (KTLA Channel 5 stands for Television Los Angeles).
KCSN - Cal State Northridge.
KBIG - “Big.” The station has one of the most powerful FM signals in Los Angeles.
KBRT - “Bright.” Once paired with KBIG playing beautiful music as Big and Bright.
KEZY - “Easy (listening).”
KTNQ - Ten Q, the ten meaning the rounded-off frequency, 1020 AM.
KROQ - The “rock” of Los Angeles in the 1970s as an AM station; Rock of the 80s later.
KMZT - K-Mozart.
KPFK - named for the owner, Pacifica.
KRKD - broadcasting from the “Arcade” building in downtown Los Angeles.
KLSX - Classics.
KPWR - Power (106).
KRTH
- formerly KHJ-FM; named “K-Earth” in the early 1970s due to a format
that never happened, harkening back to the attitude that eventually
launched earth day.
KSWD - Sound, as in “The Sound.”
KSUL - Cal State University Long (Beach).
KSBR - Saddle Back (College) Radio.
KDAY - “Day,” once a daytime-only station on AM
KGRB - Gloria (and owner) Robert Burdette
KBOB - Bob (Robert Burdette owned this one as well)
I
am running short of space so I’ll stop for now. I know, absolutely, I
am missing more than a few. If you would like to add to this list please
drop me a line. Even if it is out of town but perhaps still well-known.
The Chicago Federation of Labor’s WCLF comes to mind, as does
once-owned-by-Sears WLS ... World’s Largest Store.
