Re: COL

["Brian Davis" <irvingdog@home.com>]

As a pretty intense legal ID freak, I have to pick one little nit here: none
of these stations are legally licensed to Minneapolis-St. Paul (or
conversely, St. Paul-Minneapolis).  WCCO does not technically have to use
"St. Paul" in their legal ID, the COL is Minneapolis.  The same is true for
KSTP (COL: St. Paul); WDGY, now KFAN (COL: Minneapolis).

Brian Davis
KATF/Dubuque, IA

----------
>From: mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)
>To: "Paul Hopfgarten" <hopfgapr@sprynet.com>
>Cc: boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
>Subject: RE: COL
>Date: Thu, Feb 17, 2000, 1:10 AM
>

>>Paul Hopfgarten wrote:
>>
>>Wouldn't the fact that the Mighty Mississip' separates the 2 cities, and
>>therefore all St.Paul-Minneapolis are K*** and Minneapolis-StPaul are W***
>>also be a tell-tale sign....
>
>
>         Well, you have the cities reversed as far as which side of the
> river they're on. Also, contrary to popular folklore, the river is not the
> entire boundary between St. Paul and Minneapolis. If forms part of the
> boundary. But part of Minneapolis, including most of the main campus of the
> University of Minnesota, is on the east bank of the river. Downtown
> Minneapolis and most of the city, including my former apartment, is on the
> west bank. All of St. Paul is east of the river.
>         Also, as we know, at least in the very early days some Ks and Ws
> were assigned in the "wrong" places. WCCO originally was licensed to
> Minneapolis, while KSTP was originally licensed to St. Paul. So, it's
> backwards, theoretically. Go figure. The old WDGY/1130 was originally
> Minneapolis, but it's a W. The old KDWB/630, which was started in 1959, was
> originally St. Paul, but it was given a K. Go figure again. The place is a
> real fluke for call letters. I guess it's the only major market with a
> relatively even mix of K and W stations. St. Louis seems to be nearly all
> K, as you would figure because the city is on the west bank, and Memphis
> and New Orleans are on the east bank and seem mostly W.
>         I love to tell a story of the days in the '70s and earlier when
> KSTP, AM, FM, TV, all were in a huge studio building on University Avenue,
> the main surface street between downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul.
> (Ex-WRKO Chuck Knapp was then KSTP's AM morning guy, later moving to the
> FM). I don't even know if the stations are still there. But the first time
> I drove by the building I said, dammit, look at that. The city boundary
> sign was on the front lawn. There's one station that can give that dual
> city COL in the legal ID and really mean it. When they got the TV station
> they had put up a new building so that the city line ran through the lobby,
> literally. In that building, you could tell someone to get out of town, and
> all they might have to do is move to the next chair <g>.
>
>