Re: Oldies 1-0-3 POINT 3

[Garrett Wollman <wollman>]

<<On Wed, 23 Jul 1997 09:46:13 -0400, mwaters@wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters) said:

> blunt. The announcer says "Our call letters are WDRC-FM. Our dial position
> is 102.9.  Big D-103." [Jingle.] In its case, part of its concern is not to
[...]
> give the exact dial position. It's unusual, though, to hear a station using
> the terms "call letters" and "dial position" on the air at all.

Actually, that sort of identification is actually fairly common; I've
heard it on a number of stations, WCSO in Portland (now WJBQ) just to
name one.  There's also a common variation on that theme that I've
heard in a few places, where the announcement is something like ``Lite
96, digital 95.9 FM''.

Frankly, I don't see what all the fuss is about.  Not all radio
listeners are imbeciles as some in the industry seem to believe.  Most
people will mentally round off real numbers close to an integer
anyway, unless you do a lot of work to draw attention to the
fractional part... When was the last time you were in a grocery store,
adding up the total of your purchases in your head, and counted a
$1.99 item as anything other than $2?

The only advantage I can see to drawing attention to the fractional
part is in primary class-B/C markets, where there are enough
full-power stations to fill out the dial with locals spaced 800 kHz
apart.... Then it might be useful to make a clear differentiation
between 98.7 and 99.5 (for example).  (Of course, in New York---the
archetypal primary class-B market, it seems unlikely that anyone could
possibly confuse WRKS and WBAI...)

- -GAWollman

- --
Garrett A. Wollman   | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same
wollman@lcs.mit.edu  | O Siem / The fires of freedom 
Opinions not those of| Dance in the burning flame
MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA|                     - Susan Aglukark and Chad Irschick

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