Most of us know that 77 WABC is owned by Cumulus. My question is the call letters themselves. Does ABC/Disney still have any right to those calls or did they hand that over to Cumulus?
Most of us know that 77 WABC is owned by Cumulus. My question is the call letters themselves. Does ABC/Disney still have any right to those calls or did they hand that over to Cumulus?
Thank you, Big A. I'm all about details big or small. Here's hoping that this will continue for some time.
I dont think so......the calls are owned by the station licensee...NOT the organization who USED to own it....Callsigns are NOT leased...the only way you can find a call being used with another owner/licensee's permission is a FM or TV station that uses the same call as an AM (which is always the primary holder IF it had them first!)....Case in point: KPRC TV and KPRC-AM used to be owned by the same company then the AM was sold off..now owned by iHeart.....but Channel 2 still has the call KPRC-TV (or DT)...this was agreed when the stations were sold...IF Channel 2 changed calls, NOONE else could pick up the -TV without permission (and paying some $$) to iHeart....(in that case you could call it a lease)...but an AM ALMOST always controls the callsign..
SO KABC, WABC, KGO, WLS, etc. are all controlled by Cumulus....not Disney (I work for CMLS and used to work for Disney; Citadel and then Cumulus had use of the name ABC RADIO and ABC Radio Networks until the agreement expired a few years ago...but that did not include the callsigns...I own my own AM and tried to get a FM with xxxx to go xxxx-FM so I could to use the call on my AM....but they didnt want to deal....in THAT case, they had it first and thus have control of the call...I ended up with a callsign I like...and if a FM OR TV outside my market wanted to use it, they would have to ask ME for permission.....under the agreement I could withdraw permission and they would have to change call again....and they could never use the call on a different signal without my ok.....IF I changed callsign, then they would become the controlling license for the call...THAT's how it works)
NOW it IS possible that in the sale of the Disney/ABC radio signals to Citadel, it was agreed the callsigns could remain as long as they stayed on the station in question and if they were removed, Disney would regain control of the AM use of those calls..I would have to check the sales agreements for that
NOW it IS possible that in the sale of the Disney/ABC radio signals to Citadel, it was agreed the callsigns could remain as long as they stayed on the station in question and if they were removed, Disney would regain control of the AM use of those calls..I would have to check the sales agreements for that
I dont think so......the calls are owned by the station licensee...NOT the organization who USED to own it....Callsigns are NOT leased...the only way you can find a call being used with another owner/licensee's permission is a FM or TV station that uses the same call as an AM (which is always the primary holder IF it had them first!)....Case in point: KPRC TV and KPRC-AM used to be owned by the same company then the AM was sold off..now owned by iHeart.....but Channel 2 still has the call KPRC-TV (or DT)...this was agreed when the stations were sold...IF Channel 2 changed calls, NOONE else could pick up the -TV without permission (and paying some $$) to iHeart....(in that case you could call it a lease)...but an AM ALMOST always controls the callsign..
SO KABC, WABC, KGO, WLS, etc. are all controlled by Cumulus....not Disney (I work for CMLS and used to work for Disney; Citadel and then Cumulus had use of the name ABC RADIO and ABC Radio Networks until the agreement expired a few years ago...but that did not include the callsigns...I own my own AM and tried to get a FM with xxxx to go xxxx-FM so I could to use the call on my AM....but they didnt want to deal....in THAT case, they had it first and thus have control of the call...I ended up with a callsign I like...and if a FM OR TV outside my market wanted to use it, they would have to ask ME for permission.....under the agreement I could withdraw permission and they would have to change call again....and they could never use the call on a different signal without my ok.....IF I changed callsign, then they would become the controlling license for the call...THAT's how it works)
NOW it IS possible that in the sale of the Disney/ABC radio signals to Citadel, it was agreed the callsigns could remain as long as they stayed on the station in question and if they were removed, Disney would regain control of the AM use of those calls..I would have to check the sales agreements for that
I thought that "WABC," "KABC," "WLS," and "KGO" were registered trademarks owned by Disney. Wouldn't that have to be taken into account?
As a broadcasting attorney once told me, a government-assigned identifier cannot be trademarked or copyrighted. As I recall, she said they could be registered as a service mark, but even that is subject to approval by the FCC, which must approve all call sign assignments.
Interesting. When Cumulus/WLS-AM/FM was spun off from ABC, I thought I read that the reason that Disney could keep the WLS-TV calls on Channel 7 was because they had trademarked the call letters. Otherwise, they would have had to change it to WMVP-TV.
As far as the FCC is concerned, the licensee of WABC (AM) controls the calls. If there is a contrary agreement it's not an FCC issue. If WABC was called upon to give up the calls, and WABC refused, the parties would hash it out in court but the FCC wouldn't get involved
The FCC loosened their call sign restrictions during their 1980s wave of deregulation.
Could WWMX have done that if there were a real (and uncooperative) WMIX somewhere out there?
Well, in that case, the only station that could have complained would have been TV channel four in DC.
I thought WWOR came about because they had to move the station license to New Jersey.The "real WMIX" is in Mount Vernon IL. As long as it's not in the same market, and you don't use it as the legal call, you're fine.
The story about that goes back to when the two stations were owned by NBC. In 1984 Greater Media bought 980AM from NBC. NBC kept the TV and the WRC call letters. Greater Media couldn't keep the original 3 letter calls after the sale, so they added the extra W (in the same way that WWOR TV in NY added the W). As part of the sale, they got consent from NBC to market the station as WRC, although the legal call has the extra W. Of course since then, those letters have migrated to 570 AM, and WTEM is now on that frequency.
I thought WWOR came about because they had to move the station license to New Jersey.