Airwaves: April 17, 2009
Call Letter Matters
Last month I made mention of a question on a New York radio internet bulletin
board: “do call letters matter any more?”
Aa I said at the time, to diehard radio fanatics like me, the answer is simple:
yes, of course they matter. In fact, I find most of the current trendy radio
station names kind of silly. Every city seems to have at least one Jill, Jack,
Alice, Bob, or Jose. I’m of the old school: either call letters alone
(KHJ, KEZY, KFI) or call-letter related (Ten-Q [KTNQ], “Kiss-FM” [KIIS] K-Earth [KRTH].
Reader Paul Williams agrees. “I certainly believe that call letters do
matter,” he wrote in an e-mail. “And thank God that there are still
some radio stations that still use them, here and in surrounding areas. KFI, KOGO, KFMB, KGB,
and KLOS, just to name a few.
“For those stations that do use nicknames, many of which are on FM, well
guess what: they still use calls too! But they only do so for their top-of-the-hour
IDs. As you said, though, this would only matter to diehard radio fans like you
and me.”
Personally, I think it is good marketing. Combine good calls with great jingles
and you have a lifetime memory. Everyone who was in Los Angeles during the
1960s and ‘70s remembers the tune of “93 KHJ,” and “KRLA.” KFWB’s “Channel
98” jingle was so memorable that they still use it today. Today, everyone
in town can sing the jingle for KRTH or KIIS-FM. Everyone.
Preset Challenge
More followup on the inquiry from Dean Edwards regarding radio station presets:
Russ Cinque of Glendale sent in three complete sets: Jack 93.1, KLOS 95.5,
KYSR 98.7, KOLA 99.9, The Sound 100.3 and KROQ 106.7 filled the first FM bank
(note all the call-letters ...) FM 2 was filled with KCSN 88.5, KXLU 88.9,
KMVN 93.9 (the e-mail was sent before the format switch), KLSX 97.1, KIIS 102.7
and KBIG 104.3. Need AM? Then Russ suggests KFI 640, KABC 790, KFWB 980, KNX
1070, KDIS 1110, and KGIL 1260.
Mike Williams of Redondo Beach suggests KKJZ 88.1, KCSN, KCRW 89.9, Jack, KLOS,
The Sound and KRTH 101.1.
Betty Saunders “my former neighbor” laments the lack of selection,
but says to try KKJZ 88.1 and KPCC 89.3, KABC for Doug McIntyre and KNX to
round it out.
James Toomey suggests stations and explains why. “KKJZ -- all jazz (and
wonderful jazz at that) but with unusual, cutting-edge music on Saturday nights.
KXLU 89.9 -- all kids of different programming blocks with cutting-edge music
you won’t hear anywhere else. And KCRW -- blocks of innovative, unusual
music.”
The Sound’s Sound
Speaking of The Sound, the station has changed just a bit and claims to be
playing a wider variety and “deeper cuts” of music, which they do
indeed seem to be doing. I still wish they would play some more current music,
but what has been striking me lately is how good they sound. Not formatically,
but sonically. They really sound great and appear to have very little processing,
like FM did in the early days. I salute The Sound’s engineering staff.
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Copyright © 2009 Richard Wagoner and Los Angeles Newspaper Group.
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