call sign question

[Dan Strassberg]

What about WMAL and WBAP? Are there still other former ABC O&O radio
stations that are not ESPN or Radio Disney? I think so--WPLJ is one. Aren't
all such stations now Citadel properties? There must be other FMs in other
cities. I doubt whether any of them still use the co-owned AM's base calls
with a -FM suffix, although I think all of them did at one time.

--
Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@att.net
eFax 707-215-6367

----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Fybush" <scott@fybush.com>
To: "Kevin Vahey" <kvahey@gmail.com>
Cc: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 10:16 PM
Subject: Re: call sign question


> Kevin Vahey wrote:
> > So in other words it is up to the seller? I forgot about WFLA in Tampa
> > keeping its call.
> >
>
> The way the rules work now, a base call (say, WFLA) can be used across
> multiple services (an AM with no suffix, plus -FM, -TV, -LP as an LPFM,
> -LP as an LPTV, -LD as a digital LPTV, -CA as a class A TV and -CD as a
> digital class A TV) by multiple owners in multiple markets. The only
> condition is that whoever's had the base call the longest gets to decide
> whether other owners can use it as well.
>
> A real-world example of this is WORC. The calls were on WORC(AM) before
> they were on WORC-FM, and while the AM and FM are now under separate
> owners, it would be up to the owners of WORC(AM) to decide whether
> another licensee could have a WORC-TV or a WORC-LP.
>
> It has now become quite common, as in the ABC case, for the rights to
> continued use of a set of call letters to be a major condition of a
> station sale. I'm sure Citadel would have wanted a sizable discount on
> their purchase price if they'd been forced to change the calls on WABC,
> WLS, KGO and KABC, losing the heritage that those calls bring to those
> stations.
>
> It's also not uncommon to see a station license its calls to a
> separately-owned station in another service. Here in Rochester,
> Nexstar's WROC-TV licensed its calls to Entercom for use on what's now
> WROC(AM), in exchange for promotional credits and a simulcast of the TV
> station's evening news.
>
> And it should be noted that WFLA-TV in Tampa actually didn't keep its
> call at first. When Media General sold WFLA radio, the calls went with
> the radio station and the TV station became WXFL for a few years. (That
> sale, if I recall right, came just before the FCC relaxed the rules.)
>
> In later years, after the rules changed, WFLA-TV was able to reclaim its
> old calls, with the permission of whoever then owned WFLA(AM), which
> would have been Jacor, most likely.
>
> s