Call Letters Meaning on Wikipedia

[Ken VanTassell]

When I was in High School back in the mid 70's my English teacher told the
class that all the station call signs that started with W were all owned by
Westinghouse. Needless to say I had to correct him.

-Ken

On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 9:11 AM Rob Landry <011010001@interpring.com> wrote:

>
> I noticed recently that WGBH's WCRB has started using "We're Classical
> Radio Boston", which the old WCRB used briefely in the early '90's.
>
> But of course the call letters originally had nothing to do with the
> format, but stood for Charles River Broadcasting, which ran WCRB(AM) for
> several years as a full service station in Waltham before adopting the
> classical format in 1950-51.
>
>
> Rob
>
> On Mon, 10 Jun 2019, Donna Halper wrote:
>
> > On 6/10/2019 10:44 AM, Jim Hall wrote:
> >> I am always amazed at the "Call Letters Meaning" section of entries for
> >> radio and TV stations on Wikipedia. I wonder who writes them (and why).
> For
> >> example, WNEU in Merrimack NH has listed that its call letters stand for
> >> "New (or Nueva)
> >
> > I spend way too much time fixing errors on Wikipedia, especially with
> regard
> > to radio history.  The "meaning" of call letters is a frequent area of
> > contention.  Often, folks confuse an advertising slogan for what the
> call
> > letters meant-- the call letters were often sequentially assigned back
> in the
> > old days; but then the sales department retrofitted those calls with a
> > slogan, and everybody in the audience assumed that's what the call
> letters
> > must represent. As you and I know, many of the folks who contribute to
> > Wikipedia are not media historians, so their contributions (although
> > well-meaning) are sometimes not accurate. Fixing the mistakes is an
> ongoing
> > battle, sad to say.  And no, WHDH never stood for "we haul dead
> haddock..."
> > ;-)
> >
> > --
> >
> > Donna L. Halper, PhD
> > Associate Professor of Communication & Media Studies
> > Lesley University, Cambridge MA
> >
>