Why is KCBS AM in San Francisco but KCBS TV is in Los Angeles?

http://www.uhftelevision.com/articles/wnet.html

WNET-TV originally used for a Rhode Island TV Station prior to being used For a PBS affiliate in New York.

Note the New York version of WNET Stood for Channel 13's previous affiliation National Education Television NET. But for Rhode Island its more on the general programming side.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KFOX-TV

Yes KFOX-TV is located in El Paso, TX and is owned by Sinclair. I'm amazed that when Fox Took Over the former MetroMedia stations in New York and Los Angeles I'm amazed that Fox never reserved the KFOX Call Letters for KTTV Fox 11 or WNYW Fox5 in NYC with the WFOX Call Letters.

But then again when Fox came out in the late 1980's and early 1990's it was unknown if Fox was going to be successful network at the time. Until the NFL Came to Fox the network's future was uncertain.

RadioPatrol said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KFOX-TV

Yes KFOX-TV is located in El Paso, TX and is owned by Sinclair. I'm amazed that when Fox Took Over the former MetroMedia stations in New York and Los Angeles I'm amazed that Fox never reserved the KFOX Call Letters for KTTV Fox 11 or WNYW Fox5 in NYC with the WFOX Call Letters.

But then again when Fox came out in the late 1980's and early 1990's it was unknown if Fox was going to be successful network at the time. Until the NFL Came to Fox the network's future was uncertain.

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I'm sure the real reason is that KFOX were already established call letters that had nothing to do with 20th Century Fox, which is where, after all, that Rupert Murdoch and News Corp got the "Fox" branding. It's not like News Corp could just "reserve" the call letters for their own use, and steal them from the former owner. I recall that when I was a kid, there was a "KFOX" AM radio station in the LA market - out of Long Beach, IIRC - and it played country music.

Until recently, there was a "K-Fox" FM station in the Bay Area, though I believe the calls were "KKFX" or similar.

Similar story, which may be apocryphal. When Bay Area radio maverick James Gabbert decided to become a TV broadcaster in the 80's, and bought broken down independent Channel 20, he wanted to buy the KFRC call letters from RKO General, the owners of KFRC AM radio. RKO declined the offer.

So it's not like News Corp could just grab the KFOX calls without some work, red tape, and $$$. Also, KTTV is a heritage LA station, and to some extent, "KTTV" had some value to viewers in the 80's.

Similar situation in Boston with the Entercom/CBS merger. Before, CBS owned WBZ-TV, WBZ-FM (Sports Talk), and WBZ-AM (News). Since Boston was one of the hotspots to fix in order for the merger to go through, stations had to be sold or traded. Now, CBS owns WBZ-TV, iHeart owns WBZ-AM, and Beasley owns WBZ-FM. All in the same market, but still interesting all the same.

Least said:

Similar situation in Boston with the Entercom/CBS merger.

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BTW CBS controls the calls, and the other stations have a marketing arrangement with CBS to continue to use them. All of the heritage CBS radio stations have that agreement. Otherwise, they'd have to apply for new calls. This happened in NYC where Disney has WABC-TV, but sold WABC-AM to Citadel. Citadel can still use the calls under agreement with Disney. On the other side, when NBC sold off their radio stations, they kept WRC-TV in Washington, but the buyer had to reapply for call letters and was granted WWRC-AM.

http://www.khjradio.com/khj-history/

Yes 93 KHJ has been a CHR/HotAC station in American Samoa for two decades. It's amazing that they have been more legendary in American Samoa than in Los Angeles.

93KHJ Los Angeles as a Top 40 station only lasted for 15 years though. But then again at the time 93 KHJ was started in American Samoa, RKO General became a defunct company after the license disputes with the FCC.

RadioPatrol said:

http://www.khjradio.com/khj-history/

Yes 93 KHJ has been a CHR/HotAC station in American Samoa for two decades. It's amazing that they have been more legendary in American Samoa than in Los Angeles.

93KHJ Los Angeles as a Top 40 station only lasted for 15 years though. But then again at the time 93 KHJ was started in American Samoa, RKO General became a defunct company after the license disputes with the FCC.

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Note that the legal call letters for the American Samoa station are "KKHJ-FM." 93.1 FM. The station would not have been able to use the actual "KHJ" call letters, because they remain at 930 AM - in Los Angeles, regardless of the defunkedness of RKO General.

Clearly, the Samoan station is meant as an homage to the legendary LA Boss Radio station, but "93/KHJ" is their branding, not their call letters, much as "Power 106" is the branding for KPWR - 105.9 FM, or "Jack-FM" is the branding for KCBS-FM. While station owners like to obtain call letters to reflect the brand, there are as many exceptions. For example, here in the Bay Area we have "Star 101.3, call letters KIOI because it used to be K-101. "Alt 105" is KITS because it was "Hot Hits Kits" about 3 decades ago. "99.7 Now" is KMVQ because it had the Movin' format for about 2 minutes back in the late 00s. "98.1 The Breeze" has the calls KISQ because it was "Kiss-FM" for a long time. And to take it back to "Kevin Bacon" - KCBS San Francisco's FM repeater on 106.9 FM still has the KFRC call letters.

Pretty much nobody but us radio nerds cares about call letters these days.

LKellerIII said:

I'm sure the real reason is that KFOX were already established call letters that had nothing to do with 20th Century Fox, which is where, after all, that Rupert Murdoch and News Corp got the "Fox" branding. It's not like News Corp could just "reserve" the call letters for their own use, and steal them from the former owner. I recall that when I was a kid, there was a "KFOX" AM radio station in the LA market - out of Long Beach, IIRC - and it played country music.

Until recently, there was a "K-Fox" FM station in the Bay Area, though I believe the calls were "KKFX" or similar.

Similar story, which may be apocryphal. When Bay Area radio maverick James Gabbert decided to become a TV broadcaster in the 80's, and bought broken down independent Channel 20, he wanted to buy the KFRC call letters from RKO General, the owners of KFRC AM radio. RKO declined the offer.

So it's not like News Corp could just grab the KFOX calls without some work, red tape, and $$$. Also, KTTV is a heritage LA station, and to some extent, "KTTV" had some value to viewers in the 80's.

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And the WFOX call letters were on a COX owned radio station in Atlanta, GA. When they flipped formats and branding COX sent the WFOX call letters to their Classic Rocker 95.9 The FOX in the Norwalk/Stamford Market in CT. They had been WEFX. The station is now owned by Connoisseur Media.

And WDIS belonged to a small daytime only station on 1170-AM in Eastern Massachusetts. They went dark and turned in their license. I don't know why Disney never offered to buy the WDIS call letters from this little AM station to replace the WQEW call letters on 1560 Radio Disney in NYC. Today it's Family Radio WFME.

I find it interesting with all this talk about call letters, LA rarely uses the complete calls on any news stations, except for KTLA and KCAL, though KCAL is basically KCBS. It is ABC7, NBC4, CBS2, Fox11, etc. and has been that way for decades. I wonder if some stations may revert to "full" calls at some point, as the network becomes less important to the local news product.

From a radio perspective, LA of course still has KABC, but like many old AM's is not performing like it once did. KNX-AM is a brand alone, and is known all over SoCal at the news station, still owned by CBS/Entercom.

LKellerIII said:

Note that the legal call letters for the American Samoa station are "KKHJ-FM." 93.1 FM. The station would not have been able to use the actual "KHJ" call letters, because they remain at 930 AM - in Los Angeles, regardless of the defunkedness of RKO General.

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Shouldn't that be "defunctedness"? )

And to take it back to "Kevin Bacon" - KCBS San Francisco's FM repeater on 106.9 FM still has the KFRC call letters.

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Both the main channel and their repeater, which goes by KFRC-1. Not to foment upheaval, but recall what the fake Chris Edwards did with KYAF in Firebaugh? Boss of the Bay...or was that Boss of the Farmland?

Pretty much nobody but us radio nerds cares about call letters these days.

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Yup...that and city of license.

seatownmedia said:

I find it interesting with all this talk about call letters, LA rarely uses the complete calls on any news stations, except for KTLA and KCAL, though KCAL is basically KCBS. It is ABC7, NBC4, CBS2, Fox11, etc. and has been that way for decades. I wonder if some stations may revert to "full" calls at some point, as the network becomes less important to the local news product.

From a radio perspective, LA of course still has KABC, but like many old AM's is not performing like it once did. KNX-AM is a brand alone, and is known all over SoCal at the news station, still owned by CBS/Entercom.

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Another CBS owned station that likes to ID itself by call letters is KPIX 5 San Francisco the primary CBS affiliate in the area but that was a carry over when CBS took over the old Group W stations.

And of course when Fox Took over KTVU in Oakland they use both Call letters and network name like "KTVU Fox 2 News"

Thanks to all for answering this. I have often wondered why it took so long for CBS to change KNXT to KCBS in Los Angeles when KABC-TV and KNBC-TV had been using their calls for years on LA stations. I also wondered why KCBS-AM was in San Francisco. Now I have my answers.

Fox never chose to follow this in New York or LA switching WNYW to WFOX or KTTV to KFOX. WFOX is now used (since 2014) by a Fox station in Jacksonville, Florida and KFOX is used by a Fox station in El Paso, Texas.

DavidEduardo said:

For quite a few years in the 1990's 930 in LA was KKHJ, and only through a clever ruse which the FCC swallowed hook, line and sinker were the 3-letter calls returned to the facility.

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The FCC swallowed caca?

DrAkbar said:

Yup...that and city of license.

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I had an argument (via email) about a decade ago with the local TV critic for the SF Chronicle, when he trashed our new NBC TV affiliate - KNTV - for their TOH ID - "KNTV San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland." The critic claimed that putting San Jose first was a marketing ploy to appeal to all the high-tech nerds of Silicon Valley.

I emailed him, said NOPE - San Jose is their city of license. His response - "City of what?"

After I explained it, it became clear that in 2 decades of TV criticism, much of it regarding local Bay Area programming, he didn't know what city of license was.

LKellerIII said:

I had an argument (via email) about a decade ago with the local TV critic for the SF Chronicle, when he trashed our new NBC TV affiliate - KNTV - for their TOH ID - "KNTV San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland." The critic claimed that putting San Jose first was a marketing ploy to appeal to all the high-tech nerds of Silicon Valley.

I emailed him, said NOPE - San Jose is their city of license. His response - "City of what?"

After I explained it, it became clear that in 2 decades of TV criticism, much of it regarding local Bay Area programming, he didn't know what city of license was.

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What is the guy talking about? KNTV has always been licensed by the FCC to San Jose since previous owners/leadership ran KNTV back when Channel 11 was an contract ABC affiliate.

Also KICU aka KTVU+ a Fox Owned station has the city of License to San Jose even though its offices are in Oakland though.

KQEH aka KQED+ a PBS Affiliate has its city of License as San Jose because of FCC license even though its offices are in San Francisco.

Well KABC7 a Disney O&O has a city of License of Los Angeles even though its offices are in Glendale and Disneys CEO and Board office is in Burbank.

KOVR CBS 13 has its city of License in Stockton even though its Offices are in West Sacramento. And so on.

I'm not sure how the media critic in question claimed marketing ploy though for city of License.

I do remember in previous threads we mentioned KHJ9/KCAL9 was in various disputes over its broadcast license because of RKO General that lead to KHJ9/KCAL9 being required to say "Norwalk/Los Angeles" and that's what lead to Disney having to mention Norwalk during its time as owner of KCAL9 until Disney divested KCAL9 for ABC and KABC7 that lead to the Norwalk City of License to be lifted and changed back to Los Angeles under Young Broadcasting ownership.