Have you ever seen an incorrect station ID?

DavidEduardo said:

A friend did some researching at www.americanradiohistory.com and sent me this information:

The "Norwalk" COL came about as part of the settlement to the original November 1965 license challenge to KHJ-TV by Fidelity Broadcasting, which filed for channel 9 in that city so as to add a few brownie points for "first service". Without going through the entire history, the matter was resolved 33 years later (November 1988) when the Walt Disney Co. bought out both RKO and the competing applicant for a total of $324 million, then operated the station under the Fidelity name for a year before becoming Disney-Fidelity and changing the call letters to KCAL-TV a year later. Part of the deal was to have a hyphenated COL of "Norwalk-Los Angeles" for the first four years, after which they could drop both "Norwalk" and "Fidelity" ... which sure enough happened in late 1992.

A proposed sale to Pinelands that same year fell apart for a variety of reasons, and Disney subsequently decided to keep KCAL, not selling it until when they merged with ABC in 1995 and had to spin off channel 9 in order to keep KABC-TV/7 under the duopoly rules then in effect. The sale to Young was approved the following year; obviously, the Norwalk COL was long gone by then.

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I remember when Youtube had the clip of Jerry Dunphy and Pat Harvey as the final anchors of KHJ9 say The station will be K*C*A*L -tv soon as the call letters. But that video was removed for some reason. Also that ID was interesting to see both KHJ and KCAL used at the same time due to the transition and make Los Angeles viewers aware that KHJ is no longer being used for 9 and KCAL is a fresh brand as some of the links said.

Not seeing the KNDU ID that much anymore on our local KNDO. They are starting to get the hang of using the local ID and logo, as sometimes I'd see the KNDU IDs for weeks on end.
KAPP-35 on the other hand has an incorrect station ID a few times a day, displaying a translator on the WRONG channel and WRONG calls! The ID claims their Ellensburg translator is "K36BR". That station is licensed to Fraser, Colorado and relays KWGN/2! Even before digital they were displaying their old channel 63 analog Ellensburg station as 'K63BR', another wrong call. Their calls were actually K63BZ. I guess no one pays attention to the local ID anymore. K20JL-D is the current calls for the Ellensburg ABC translator.

In the '60s and '70s, supered IDs for KOOL-TV Phoenix (ch 10, then-CBS, now KSAZ Fox) were infamous for getting on-air at KOLD-TV Tucson (ch 13, CBS). The network feed to KOLD was nothing but a "dirty" microwave link from KOOL--meaning with all the PHX local breaks, IDs, etc. (not a clean feed of CBS live or CBS delayed). KOLD normally put up a lower-third block, with its ID inside of the block, but sometimes it wasn't put up early enough, and voila!--a KOOL ID on the KOLD air. That problem disappeared in 1977, when KOLD got its own Telco line, divorced itself from KOOL, and started doing its own delays.

I'm sure similar stories can be told by folks who were at other stations with similar setups, or--even worse--rebroadcast the off-air signal of another station.

Not an incorrect ID, but a promo airing on the wrong station (and I'm not talking about promos for in-market sister stations either, which are common).

Yesterday I was watching The Chew on WTNH New Haven, Connecticut. A promo for Dr. Phil came on. No big deal as Dr. Phil airs on WTNH at 3PM. But then the voice-over and on-screen graphics "Tonight at 5 on FOX Providence."

Nexstar owns WTNH/WCTX in New Haven and I believe LMA's FOX Providence. (WNAC/Providence).

There was one time where an promo for a iHeart-owned (at the time, still Clear Channel) station in Omaha, KXKT-FM, for some reason didn't just end up on the wrong station, but ended up in the wrong TV market, and it somehow ended up in a market 1,200 miles away, which is Orlando.

Don't know whose fault it was for airing the Omaha ad in Orlando. People could blame Cox or CC/iHeart, since I don't know how a Omaha commercial ended up in Orlando

There's even video proof of it on YouTube, and according to the uploader, Cox or Clear Channel (iHeartMedia) didn't notice it was there for more than a week:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNx4hj0arwM

Well I seen the ABC7 Eyewitness News name slipped on KGO-TV a few times simply because KGO ABC7 was borrowing a segment from KABC-TV Los Angeles for Southern California segments for statewide news. Also I seen KABC-TV accidentally ID themselves as simply ABC7 News a few times simply because KABC-TV was using KGO clips for northern California segments.

But in my home DMA I noticed KCRA the Hearst owned station/NBC affiliate in Sacramento used KTVU Fox 2 News clips because KCRA needed the Bay Area segments for their newscasts and this was probably when Cox owned KTVU 2 and they had a contract with Hearst television to get segments from them for newscast reasons. I even seen the KTVU Fox 2 logo mic flag appear on KCRA news whenever Bay Area Segments want to be seen in Sacramento.

They were common on WCMC-TV, Channel 40 in Wildwood, NJ, in the 1970's. They used to have to get their NBC network feed via coax from KYW-TV, Philadelphia, and if the switcher operator fell asleep at the switch, so to speak, a legal ID for Channel 3 would slip in.

I remember back in 1994 KTVU was airing the simulcast of the Northridge quake in the San Fernando Valley and since KTVU was under Cox ownership they used both the KTLA feed and KTTV feed at the time.

I remember KTLA's station ID was included but that's because the KTVU was not available to fill in with local details due to the fact that Los Angeles news staff was still looking for damage at that point.

Also I remember KTTV calling themselves "Fox News" when John Beard was the anchor on Fox 11 News. This was way before Fox even considered "Fox News Channel" or "Fox Sports"

But then again probably it was OK for the Fox O&O's like WTTG, KTTV and WNYW to brand their local newscasts "Fox News" in 1994 until the O&O division was warned that they must include their channel numbers to separate themselves from (Fox News Channel)

I saw a sponsor ID for WNAC TV in Providence on WTNH on April 1, 2019.

In 2006 when CBS was getting ready to covert UPN affiliates into CW affiliates KBHK-TV and KBCW-TV call letters were used at the same time when the UPN44 branding was used. But this was a result of both a call letter transition and change of affiliation transition process at the same time.

Speaking of incorrect IDs, in Salt Lake City, KUTV 2 (CBS), KJZZ 14 (Ind), and KMYU 12 (MyNet) are all co-owned. Even though they're running different programming, every ID has all three stations (without channel numbers).

Some of it makes sense, since KUTV's programming is relayed on a subchannel of KMYU and vice-versa. But KJZZ is not a part of any simulcast.

Another situation is that our local Sinclair-owned FOX station (WOLF-TV FOX 56) accidentally displayed an ID for "NBC 24" while they are showing a teaser for their 10 O'Clock newscast. From what I know, the FOX 56 news at 10 originates from a Sinclair station out of Indiana and that same anchors who are on this newscast also does theirs over on "NBC 24".

So this is what happens if a station outsource a news programming from 800 miles away.

WSTM/WETM semi-satellite station ID 1984. This is a case where the WSTM Station ID was inserted while the WETM was getting ready to put their own ID inside.

That's not surprising. Many of those small-town TV stations had to rely on the MCOs switching from another station's 'dirty feed' to their own commercials, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. I have a VHS tape with a small 1981 snippet of KIMA (end of Miss USA pageant, start of local news, and commercials). At the end of the CBS primetime lineup, when the logo appeared, a split-second of WCBS' Rolland Smith also popped up before KIMA inserted local ads. I am not sure how that got onto the west coast feed unless they got the east coast telco feed and played it on tape. Because it would have been nearly 2AM in New York!

crainbebo said:

That's not surprising. Many of those small-town TV stations had to rely on the MCOs switching from another station's 'dirty feed' to their own commercials, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. I have a VHS tape with a small 1981 snippet of KIMA (end of Miss USA pageant, start of local news, and commercials). At the end of the CBS primetime lineup, when the logo appeared, a split-second of WCBS' Rolland Smith also popped up before KIMA inserted local ads. I am not sure how that got onto the west coast feed unless they got the east coast telco feed and played it on tape. Because it would have been nearly 2AM in New York!

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KNXT/KCBS feed on KIMA? How did an east coast network feed end up in Washington State. Or was this a relay issue at the time whenever Los Angeles network owned stations for some reason were not available to put the west coast feed in that example.