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Are AM Radio Stations No Longer Required To Identify On the Hour ?

U

Unregistered

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KDAV 1590 kHz (Lubbock, TX) recently changed ownership and it's format, being taken over as part of the "High Plains Radio Network."

That started March 30, 2015 at 11am , with a couple of the announcers there saying what seemed like a very abrupt goodbye to their listeners. Then the station started airing "the change is coming" promos announcing the new network, on an endless loop, 24/7. No station ID on the hour.

I thought they were supposed to be airing the original format until April 1st, but it seemed like they were quickly forced off the air, so that promos could be played over and over 24/7.

As of 9am April 16 it's still the endless station promo, and no station identification. Seventeen days of this now. Did the FCC do away with the requirement to give hourly station identification? And aren't stations required to air some sort of real programming?
 
Station IDs are required. Except for indecency, etc., the FCC doesn't care about programming.
 
They'll be doing station IDs by the time the FCC got around to do anything, if they even did. Which they wouldn't. No one cares about station IDs anymore.
 
Yes stations are still required to ID hourly at a natural break in programming as close to the top of the hour as possible with both the call letters followed by dial position. There are a few things you can inset between the call letters and city of license.

So many stations get the legal ID wrong and are never called on it. Other stations might place it in a commercial break (one station did it at a commercial break at 35 past the hour although there were 3 more breaks before the top of the hour. You'd be amazed how people cannot understand call letters immediately followed by city of license. At the station I manage, we could ask the jock what the call letters were and they'd get it right and then ask them the city of license and they'd get that right. Then I'd ask them to say the call letters and the city of license. They get that right too. Then at the top of the hour they'd screw it up. These weren't stupid people and I have always wondered why so many just couldn't get it right. I've met many with a decade to a few decades in the business that don't how what a Legal ID is.

I worked a station that went with call letters followed by FM Stereo and then the city of license. In the 3.5 years it was never changed. If I recall correctly KLLS in San Antonio used to ID as "San Antonio spells class KLLS"...never heard them say KLLS, San Antonio once.

I was amazed by one station that edited their ID so tightly you could not understand the call letters and barely understood the city of license. Their Id was so fast it made the tightly edited car dealer disclaimers sound drawn out. Never did make out the calls or fully get the city of license by listening but I did get their moniker "Mandatory FM".

I doubt the FCC really cares too much. The Legal ID came about with World War II when stations had to identify themselves ever 30 minutes. In my mind the Legal ID requirement likely should be dropped. Most stations are known by a moniker, not their call letters and city of license. Why would a listener need to know that thestation you know as, say Rock 107 has certain call letters and is licensed to a suburb when it clearly serves the whole metro?
 
It was (and perhaps may still be) that the ID had to be either the call letters, followed by the COL. with only the name of the owner or the frequency (or channel in the case of TV) allowed to be inserted between the call and the COL.

WQZ, Podunk
WQZ, AM 1450, Podunk
WQZ, Ajax Widget Co., Podunk.

Today, I can't find the regulations that had allowed the last two forms, so it may be today that only "WQZ, Podunk" is legal.

Before sometime in the late 1980s, the mention of city names was very tightly regulated.

If WQZ had wanted to ID as "WQZ Podunk-Hooterville", they would have to file an app with the FCC that entailed all that any change in COL would involve

Broadcasters got around this by following the ID with a sentence that started with the city of their choosing (WQZ, Podunk, Chicago's Doo-wop station"), eventually getting the FCC to drop the concept of dual-city IDs altogether. "WTIQ, Manistique-Miami-Fresno" would be totally stupid, but totally legal.

Some stations are clever at hiding their real COLs in plain sight (WGTZ, Eaton Dayton alive!)

The greatest pushing of the envelope happened when Jacor decided to put both of their Cincinnati talkers under the WLW brand. 700 was (and is) still WLW, and went by the brand "WLW 700", while WKRC went by the brand "WLW 550"
Their ID at the top of the hour read: "This was WKRC, Cincinnati, this is the new WLW 550". Their call sign was still WKRC at the time (before they did legally switch it to WLWA), but, as shown in italics, they did say "WKRC, Cincinnati", thus fulfilling their legal ID obligation!
 
You are correct on adding the frequency or the licensee between the call letters and city of license. I asked the FCC guy that came calling at a station I worked. He said adding the frequency was not a good idea because people had the tendency to add the radio band as well: WQZ, 98 point 7 FM, Podunk instead of the legal WQZ, 98 point 7, Podunk. I asked because a community access station where I had a weekly show back in the 1970s was fined for saying KCHU FM 90.9, Dallas. The FCC said by saying FM it implied there was an AM as well. Then again, it could have been there were so many violations the agent could fund the FCC for a month if he found them all and if the station could have paid the fines.

I worked in Kerrville, Texas. KITE was a Jones Satellite Soft Rock. For the top of the hour, we had 5 seconds for a Legal ID and weather forecast. So it went like this: " "Kite FM 92, K-I-T-E (fast pause) Kerrville Weather, Good chance of afternoon thunderstorms, high 80."

Funny you mention WLW. Being in Texas, I recall WOAI (Clear Channel), San Antonio, making a smart move. They acquired 760 KSJL and branded it "WOAI Two" As I recall they did promote the stations on both frequencies. I think this might have been a ploy to wipe out KTSA 550, also doing talk. This gave Clear Channel an option to increase their numbers over 2 frequencies to grab a better share and claim more of those buys (likely at better rates). I think they began saying 760 WOAI at some point. I think they simulcast news on both stations and if I am recalling correctly news began before the hour (59:30) mentioning local stories that would follow the network news followed by the legal ID for both stations and the time.
 
Relevant to this subject is the lead story in today's Tom Taylor newsletter. Obviously the NAB is unhappy that the FCC is closing some of its regional offices. Also upset that the FCC is doing less to police pirates. But it turns out that the FCC is rededicating some of their attention to enforcement of indecency rules in order to collect maximum fines:

"FCC’s “New Sheriff” at the Enforcement Bureau aims at “prevention, not just enforcement.”
So that’s where the eyebrow-raising $325,000 indecency fine against Roanoke TV station WDBJ came from – Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc was sending the broadcast industry a message. That represents a real change in philosophy at the Commission – sort of like a traffic court judge throwing the book (and then some) at a speeder, as an object lesson to other drivers."

Compare the size of a fine for missing a TOH ID with indecency. It's all about the money at the FCC.
 
My favorite station uses a satellite format a lot. Occasionally, something goes wrong and they don't go to news or have local commercials or have any station IDs, including the all-important legal ID. Which on that station is usually city, station name, station call letters.

And last week somehow the legal station ID got missed while I was listening.
 
TheBigA said:
Compare the size of a fine for missing a TOH ID with indecency. It's all about the money at the FCC.
Click to expand...

I filed a complaint on the FCC website, and of course I'm sure nothing will be done -- as of 8:30 PM CST today KDAV 1590AM is still "broadcasting" an endless loop of the same station promo playing over and over 24/7, with no hourly ID.

Can anybody who has insider knowledge of AM broadcasting explain to me the purpose of a network doing this (in this case the "High Plains Radio Network") ? It seems like a big waste of electricity at the least. If the network/station isn't ready to air programming yet it would make more sense just to take it off the air until it is ready.

I know I won't be listening to this station when/if they ever finally start to air some real programming, especially not after they (seemingly) abruptly ran off the old DJ's just so they could play the same promo over and over and over for weeks on end. Not that they care, I'm sure they don't.

As TheBigA says, I guess the FCC really isn't interested in enforcing some regulations.
 
TheBigA said:
Compare the size of a fine for missing a TOH ID with indecency. It's all about the money at the FCC.
Click to expand...

Also, I forgot to clarify, this isn't a case of the station missing a TOH ID here and there.

This has gone on *continuously* 24/7, for almost 20 days now, as best I can tell . Of course I haven't listened every hour on the hour or near it (I can't stand their stupid promo that plays over and over) -- but I have checked in many times around the top of the hour, and have never heard anything other than the endless promo loop.

I guess it doesn't matter and the FCC probably won't do anything, it just seems bizarre to me that this is allowed to happen -- but if someone started a pirate station here that actually aired programming they'd be all over that ...
 
vchimpanzee said:
My favorite station uses a satellite format a lot. Occasionally, something goes wrong and they don't go to news or have local commercials or have any station IDs, including the all-important legal ID. Which on that station is usually city, station name, station call letters.

And last week somehow the legal station ID got missed while I was listening.
Click to expand...

This happens all the time on the public radio station here (an FM.) You hear cueing tones from the statewide network, then 10 seconds of dead air where the local ID should be, then the next program. (Unless of course the next show is "live 'n' local.")
 
Unregistered said:
I guess it doesn't matter and the FCC probably won't do anything, it just seems bizarre to me that this is allowed to happen -- but if someone started a pirate station here that actually aired programming they'd be all over that ...
Click to expand...


Only if it was interfering with a licensed station. Pirates on blank channels can go for years.
 
KF-99 of Union City, TN (studio location, not COL) ran the following monstrosity as a legal ID for the first year or so that they were on the air:

"WENK-FM of Union City, Inc., presents WWKF-Fulton, KF-99."

The legal ID, of course, was the bolded part above.

It was fairly well-known among the locals that Terry Hailey, GM of WENK, wanted "WENK-FM" as the calls for his then-new FM sister station, but for whatever reason, was unable to get them. And since WENK had referred to itself as "K-radio" for most of the '70s, it would have been reasonable to believe that "KF-99" represented "WENK-FM. But that, of course, turned out not to be the case.

It was also well-known amongst the locals that KF-99 was the former WFUL-FM of Fulton, KY (sister station of the now dearly departed WFUL-AM of Fulton), so the legal ID of "Fulton" should not have confused anyone. However, as far as I could tell, the call letters "WENK-FM" never existed, and WENK and WWKF were (and apparently are) still owned by "WENK of Union City, Inc.," or some such, so the inclusion of "FM" in the above statement only served to confuse listeners. Hailey had even said at one time that the station would be "WENK-FM" and nick-named "KF-99," so the legal ID only served to further confuse everyone.
 
IDs are required and actually only in place to identify the station should they be interfering on someone else.
 
Ravens said:
Everything we use these days interferes with AM radio.
Click to expand...

And we pay an annual fee for the 2mv/m that is unprotected from part 15 interference. We thought that we'd be getting translators, but now we know that they're being reserved to extend LPFM coverage.
 
I was successful in Lexington, KY and Flint, MI. Still shopping in Cincy and Lansing.
I was referring to Cliburns most lofty promise of a translator for every AM that Wheeler just pulled off of the table. Most of us knew that this would be impossible.
Making matters worse is that it looks like LPFMs will get a power boost or be able to apply for translators as well. Wheeler is nuts.
 
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