CI
I feel you're off the beam here, Brekkie. It's not that the station names are bad, it's just that they are mostly, like so many others, unimaginative. That's not an inherently good or bad thing, it just is what it is. You can't exactly say that BBC have imaginative channel names for their main channels, cos they don't. Neither does RTE for that matter, or France Television.
What can be quite bad is the branding that they use around those names. Some have very good branding, but a lot don't, and again, that's no different to what happens here and across Europe.
Isn't it time some TV execs in the US just realised their stations have **** names.
I feel you're off the beam here, Brekkie. It's not that the station names are bad, it's just that they are mostly, like so many others, unimaginative. That's not an inherently good or bad thing, it just is what it is. You can't exactly say that BBC have imaginative channel names for their main channels, cos they don't. Neither does RTE for that matter, or France Television.
What can be quite bad is the branding that they use around those names. Some have very good branding, but a lot don't, and again, that's no different to what happens here and across Europe.
AN
Yes, because Fox KTVU 2 (or whatever bleeding order it’s in) just rolls off the tongue.
MO
Call letters' meaning: T ele V ision for Yo U on air March 3, 1958 (60 years ago)
Yeah because, BIGCENTRE and MADEIN---- and THATS ---- where brilliant solutions. There are 1761 local tv stations across the US. Not every single one is going to have a brilliant set of CALL LETTERS.
Yes, because Fox KTVU 2 (or whatever bleeding order it’s in) just rolls off the tongue.
Call letters' meaning: T ele V ision for Yo U on air March 3, 1958 (60 years ago)
Yeah because, BIGCENTRE and MADEIN---- and THATS ---- where brilliant solutions. There are 1761 local tv stations across the US. Not every single one is going to have a brilliant set of CALL LETTERS.
Last edited by Mouseboy33 on 21 August 2018 12:51am - 4 times in total
NY
American stations are required by FCC regulations to have the call letters mentioned in some way, shape or form, which would follow the " W " (east coast stations, barring a few exceptions) and the " K " (west coast stations) That would include the aforementioned "KTVU Fox 2" example you noted. Some stations do have what is considered to be "legacy" call letters - - as in call letters that have rarely changed since their introduction and are known more by their letters and are synonymous with their home markets rather than just the networks they carry. Some examples of "legacy" call letters include WTVJ Miami, WPIX New York, KTLA Los Angeles, WABC New York, WBBM Chicago, WGN Chicago, WJZ Baltimore and WGBH Boston among others.
Yes, because Fox KTVU 2 (or whatever bleeding order it’s in) just rolls off the tongue.
American stations are required by FCC regulations to have the call letters mentioned in some way, shape or form, which would follow the " W " (east coast stations, barring a few exceptions) and the " K " (west coast stations) That would include the aforementioned "KTVU Fox 2" example you noted. Some stations do have what is considered to be "legacy" call letters - - as in call letters that have rarely changed since their introduction and are known more by their letters and are synonymous with their home markets rather than just the networks they carry. Some examples of "legacy" call letters include WTVJ Miami, WPIX New York, KTLA Los Angeles, WABC New York, WBBM Chicago, WGN Chicago, WJZ Baltimore and WGBH Boston among others.
Last edited by NYTV on 21 August 2018 1:02am - 2 times in total
NY
Some call letters also have particular meanings. Some examples:
WGN Chicago - "World's Greatest Newspaper" a reference to the Chicago Tribune, its sister newspaper and founder.
WPIX New York - the "Pix" is derived from "Picture" when the station was founded by the New York Daily News .
WNYW New York - "What New Yorkers Watch" which was the successor to the former letters of WNEW (which was part of a TV/ radio station duopoly prior to the Fox takeover)
KTLA Los Angeles "K Television Los Angeles"
Yes, because Fox KTVU 2 (or whatever bleeding order it’s in) just rolls off the tongue.
Some call letters also have particular meanings. Some examples:
WGN Chicago - "World's Greatest Newspaper" a reference to the Chicago Tribune, its sister newspaper and founder.
WPIX New York - the "Pix" is derived from "Picture" when the station was founded by the New York Daily News .
WNYW New York - "What New Yorkers Watch" which was the successor to the former letters of WNEW (which was part of a TV/ radio station duopoly prior to the Fox takeover)
KTLA Los Angeles "K Television Los Angeles"
LL
London Lite
Founding member
Using call letters is still popular with some radio stations as well. Even now, a station owner when relaunching a station will change the call letters to match the branding as close as possible.
DE
WGBH's call sign refers to Great Blue Hill, the highest natural point in the Boston area and the original location of the station's FM and TV transmitters (the FM transmitter is still there today).
In Philadelphia, WPVI's call sign refers to its city of license and its virtual channel (6).
One of the few 'W' call signs west of the Mississippi River is WACO in - guess where - Waco, Texas. There are two others that spell out the city of license - WARE in Massachusetts and WISE in Virginia.
In Philadelphia, WPVI's call sign refers to its city of license and its virtual channel (6).
One of the few 'W' call signs west of the Mississippi River is WACO in - guess where - Waco, Texas. There are two others that spell out the city of license - WARE in Massachusetts and WISE in Virginia.
CI
American stations are required by FCC regulations to have the call letters mentioned in some way, shape or form, which would follow the " W " (east coast stations, barring a few exceptions) and the " K " (west coast stations) That would include the aforementioned "KTVU Fox 2" example you noted. Some stations do have what is considered to be "legacy" call letters - - as in call letters that have rarely changed since their introduction and are known more by their letters and are synonymous with their home markets rather than just the networks they carry. Some examples of "legacy" call letters include WTVJ Miami, WPIX New York, KTLA Los Angeles, WABC New York, WBBM Chicago, WGN Chicago, WJZ Baltimore and WGBH Boston among others.
The regulation from the FCC is that local stations are required to broadcast their call sign and place of origination, once per hour, every hour, at the top of the hour or as close to it as possible. This does mean you often get some branding that looks just weird by our standards. But it's all a regulatory requirement. The requirement applies to both local radio and TV stations, which means that during films, you will often get a graphic appearing during the network film showing the local station branding, appearing around the top of the hour.
Yes, because Fox KTVU 2 (or whatever bleeding order it’s in) just rolls off the tongue.
American stations are required by FCC regulations to have the call letters mentioned in some way, shape or form, which would follow the " W " (east coast stations, barring a few exceptions) and the " K " (west coast stations) That would include the aforementioned "KTVU Fox 2" example you noted. Some stations do have what is considered to be "legacy" call letters - - as in call letters that have rarely changed since their introduction and are known more by their letters and are synonymous with their home markets rather than just the networks they carry. Some examples of "legacy" call letters include WTVJ Miami, WPIX New York, KTLA Los Angeles, WABC New York, WBBM Chicago, WGN Chicago, WJZ Baltimore and WGBH Boston among others.
The regulation from the FCC is that local stations are required to broadcast their call sign and place of origination, once per hour, every hour, at the top of the hour or as close to it as possible. This does mean you often get some branding that looks just weird by our standards. But it's all a regulatory requirement. The requirement applies to both local radio and TV stations, which means that during films, you will often get a graphic appearing during the network film showing the local station branding, appearing around the top of the hour.
CH
Stations can brand however they damn please so long as they run FCC identification by flashing their callsign and channel number in tiny print for five seconds every hour. The branding is a completely different issue.
Using the callsign as the primary brand name isn't that weird here because a lot of stations that do have gone by their callsigns for a long time, so their audiences are used to it.
Back in the day, a lot of stations simply branded themselves by the channel number only. But as time went on, especially as things went online, that kind of branding became less tenable.
That was the case with KTVU. For the longest time, it branded simply as "Channel 2." When the Fox network started getting hot in the 90s, they started branding themselves as "Fox 2." Then when Fox News Channel started becoming, um, the Fox News Channel, the station settled on using the callsign rather than the network name ("KTVU Channel 2") in order to create some distance from the FNC brand.
Then once Fox finally bought the station four years ago, naturally Fox wanted their name on everything, but the "KTVU" brand has been established for so long that switching to simply "Fox 2" would probably be confusing and alienating for Bay Area viewers.
If you were to strike up a conversation with a casual viewer about the station, they'd probably know it as "channel 2" or "KTVU."
I don't know what would be better than that. The callsign thing probably does seem a little odd, and I suppose it is, but none of these stations would want to ditch their longtime branding for something that would sound confusingly generic like "Fox News Northern California Tonight" or something.*
*and yes, before anyone says anything, I'm familiar with NBC Bay Area, but that's another can of worms that we don't need to relitigate.
Using the callsign as the primary brand name isn't that weird here because a lot of stations that do have gone by their callsigns for a long time, so their audiences are used to it.
Back in the day, a lot of stations simply branded themselves by the channel number only. But as time went on, especially as things went online, that kind of branding became less tenable.
That was the case with KTVU. For the longest time, it branded simply as "Channel 2." When the Fox network started getting hot in the 90s, they started branding themselves as "Fox 2." Then when Fox News Channel started becoming, um, the Fox News Channel, the station settled on using the callsign rather than the network name ("KTVU Channel 2") in order to create some distance from the FNC brand.
Then once Fox finally bought the station four years ago, naturally Fox wanted their name on everything, but the "KTVU" brand has been established for so long that switching to simply "Fox 2" would probably be confusing and alienating for Bay Area viewers.
If you were to strike up a conversation with a casual viewer about the station, they'd probably know it as "channel 2" or "KTVU."
I don't know what would be better than that. The callsign thing probably does seem a little odd, and I suppose it is, but none of these stations would want to ditch their longtime branding for something that would sound confusingly generic like "Fox News Northern California Tonight" or something.*
*and yes, before anyone says anything, I'm familiar with NBC Bay Area, but that's another can of worms that we don't need to relitigate.
Last edited by Charles on 21 August 2018 8:48am
MO
Also Canadian and Mexican stations are assigned CALL SIGNS. Canada stations use C and Mexican stations use X.
The famous Toronto station Citytv calls letters are CITY.
The famous Toronto station Citytv calls letters are CITY.