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The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 18

Location:
Akron, Ohio
Issue Date:
Page:
18
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

B6 The Beacon Journal Sunday, July 10, 1988 Radio, TV call letters can be a valuable asset What those radio and TV ceil letters mean Some Akron-Canton stations are spending big on identity change letters almost as fast as they change records. Among the trend-buckers is Canton's WHBC, which has owned the same letters since 1925. A logical guess at the origin would be the station's early affiliation with NBC. But that is not the case, says program director Doug Lane. "They were issued sequentially," he reports.

"I'm assuming there was a WGBC (immediately) before us." Many of the people who run the stations haven't a clue as to what their call letters stand for. 'KDD? I don't know," says Anthony of WKDD. "Kid? Kid Radio, maybe?" Nope. Station creator George Mamas, now retired, says there is less to the letters than meets the ear. He was only after a punchy, distinctive sound.

Plenty of call-letter myths have developed. More than one local radio executive suggested WDBN was named after the wife of the original owner, Ted But Niarhos, today retired and living in Coral Gables, says that just isn't so. "We were looking for something that phonetically would sound smooth and easy," he says. (And), if I recall correctly, one of the tests used by people in the radio business was the use of 'Dog, Baker, trying to understand something. That was one of the other reasons." WDBN was Niarhos' second choice.

Although he doesn't re member the first, he does recall that it had already been taken by a ship. In those days (1960), aircraft and ships at sea pulled their identities from the same pool of let-, ters as broadcasters. Stations had to submit a list of their five top choices, and the FCC would run a check to see if those choices were available. In the subsequent three decades, FCC rules have changed considerably, particularly since the start of the Reagan administration. Today, virtually all you have to do is make sure the call letters you want are unused and notify the competition of your intentions so they have a chance to contest the switch.

Objections are rare. WMMS probably would fight a local application for a WNNS, for example, and probably would win. But most stations want something distinctive. Such as WONE. It was one of the recent deregulation wrinkles that enabled that Akron station to obtain what many consider to be among the best calls on the planet.

Shortly before easy-listening WAEZ was converted to a rock format at the end of 1984, the FCC proclaimed that an AM station and an FM station owned by the same company could use the same call letters even if they were in different markets. The Berks owned WONE-AM in Day-See FCC, page B7 Selected Area Radio Stations WADC (now WSLR): Watch Akron Develop Commerce WAKR: Akron WCUE: The Cue WCLV: Cleveland WDBN: Dog, Baker, Nan (words used to test equipment) WERE: We're Cleveland WGAR: George A. Richards (station founder) WHBC: nothing (sequentially issued) WHK: nothing WHLO: Hello WKDD: nothing (sound of letters) WKSU: Kent State University WLTF: Light WMJI: Magic WMMS: Metromedia Stereo (former group owners) WNCX: North Coast WNIR: Winner WONE: No. 1 WPHR: Power WdAL: Quality WRQK: Rock WSLR: Whistler WTOF: Tower of Faith WWWE: nothing (although one area columnist recently suggested it meant "What a Waste of Watts and WZAK: Muzak (original owner) Selected TV Stations WAKC: AkronCanton WEWS: Edward Wyllis Scripps (founder of Scripps Howard) WNEOWEAO: Northeast OhioEducation, Akron. Ohio WOIO: Ohio (although General Manager Dennis Thatcher suggests it might have been born "when one of the engineers bumped his WUAB: United Artists Broadcasting (original owner) WVIZ: abbreviation for the Latin word videlicet, which means "to wit, take note" the same lines WAKC, for AkronCanton.

"We researched very carefully and tried to pick one that made sense and would be memorable to people," Berk says. "After a lot of careful consideration, we felt call letters very close to the ones we'd had for more than 35 years would make the most sense. And 'AkronCanton' more closely reflects our area of influence." Through the years, call letters have been far more important to radio stations than to television stations because viewers almost universally refer to TV stations by channel number. That is particularly true for WEWS (Channel 5), because WEWS after Scripps Howard founder Edward Wyllis Scripps is a mouthful. "Some call letters roll off the tongue, especially out West where you don't have the polysyllabic W's," says station spokeswoman Rita Price Kueber.

"We have two. Here we refer to it affectionately as However, as WKYC (Channel 3) General Manager John Llewellyn notes, television call letters are growing increasingly important because of the proliferation of cable. Channel 3, for example, appears on various area cable systems as 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 18, 19 and 23. Still, television stations, relatively few in number, are much easier to keep track of than radio stations, which number in the 60s in the Beacon Journal circulation area. And radio stations seem to Continued from page Bl smokescreen for their real intentions.

"A new station will apply for call letters two or three times before going on the air, and use it as a strategic, tactical weapon," says Nick Anthony, vice president of Akron's WKDD (96.5-FM) and WSLR (1350-AM). For example, he says, a station intending to enter the market with a rock format will try to misdirect the competition by applying for WCOW, indicating a country format, then switching to WEZY, signaling an easy-listening format, before revealing its actual choice. But that does not mean stations change their identities cavalierly. Broadcasters have spent fortunes drumming their letters' into the public's memory banks, and are reluctant to throw away that investment if they have enjoyed even modest success. Through a combination of heavy promotion and long-term ratings dominance, some letters such as WMMS (100.7-FM) have become priceless.

Broadcast executives agonize when choosing new letters. When the Berk family of Akron sold its group of radio stations but retained its television station, the deal called for the local radio stations VVAKR and WONE to keep their call letters. So the Berks had to come up with a new name for TV station WAKR. Roger Berk Jr. pored over a computer list of possibilities and finally settled on something along (Z NATIONAL THEATRE CORP.

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Pages Available:
3,079,796
Years Available:
1872-2024