Question about WOWT Omaha

[Gregg]

Originally this station, Channel 6, was co-owned with WOW-AM-FM and was called WOW-TV.  When the radio and TV stations were sold to different companies, they could no longer in those days share the same call letters. (Today that is permitted.)

The AM-FM combo kept the WOW call letters for a few years more.  The W call letters were grandfathered, even though Omaha is well west of the Mississippi.  So how did the TV station get new call letters that begin with a W?  I suppose the new owners wanted call letters as similar to the old ones as possible.  But just because the station had calls starting with a W when it was under previous ownership doesn't give the new owners the right to claim W call letters for the station.
 
I also notice WOW-TV had been a CBS affiliate.  Oddly there was another CBS affiliate only about 40 miles away in Lincoln NE on Channel 10.  That's pretty short spacing.  KOLN is still with CBS but WOWT is now with NBC.




Gregg
nh153@mail.com





There are about a dozen radio stati

[jh]

I'm not sure how they got the WOWT call approved by the FCC.  I know that some years later WMT-TV and WMT AM-FM in Cedar Rapids IA went their separate ways and the TV applied for a call with a W (maybe WMTV, WMTT ?) and it wasn't approved, so they became KGAN-TV.

The FCC has allowed a few AM stations who dropped their historic "W" call west of the Mississippi (or a 3-letter call) to later get it back, but only if the same company still owns the station that owned it when the old call was dropped.  So 590 in Omaha could get back the WOW call since it's still owned by Journal, who dropped it back in the 90s.  590 is now co-owned with the present CBS affiliate in Omaha, KMTV, channel 3.

I do know of one former AM-TV combo that both kept the same calls, despite the radio station being sold off back in the late 60s.  KVFD in
Fort Dodge IA.  KVFD-AM 1400 was spun off, but the retained those calls while KVFD-TV continued until it folded in the mid-70s.

[YEKIMI]

I know for the most part west of the Mississippi river they begin call letters begin with K, east of it with W. I could see some stations having kept the W if they're west of the Mississippi by possibly having offices/studios west of the Mississippi but their transmitters, towers and antenna could be on the east side of the river. I'm not sure how FCC rules work in that configuration but may be a possibility.

[bpatrick]

That's like asking how WDTV, the DuMont o&o in
Pittsburgh, got the KDKA call letters when Westinghouse
bought it, even though Pittsburgh is east of the Mississippi.
I think the only answer is indeed common ownership.  (WDTV
subsequently became the calls of the CBS affiliate in Weston/
Clarksburg, WV, but there is no connection to the old WDTV
in Pittsburgh.)

KMOL San Antonio got back its original call letters, WOAI,
when the radio station owners repurchased the station and
decided that both should have the same call letters.  Again,
San Antonio is west of the Mississippi.

But how have some stations been able to get three-letter
calls this day and age?  Two examples, WJKW Cleveland
switched back to its former call letters, WJW; WWJ, the CBS
o&o in Detroit, uses the calls of the NBC affiliate before Post-Newsweek
bought Ch. 4 and changed its calls to WDIV.

[Scott Fybush]

Some of these examples are not like the others.

KDKA-TV and WWJ-TV were able to take those calls because they were co-owned with existing grandfathered examples of non-standard calls. Westinghouse already owned KDKA(AM), and CBS already owned WWJ(AM), and FCC practice has long allowed such "brand extensions." Recent examples have included WWL-FM in New Orleans and WBZ-FM in Boston.

In the case of WJKW/WJW-TV, the FCC was willing to allow the old 3-letter call to be preserved when former sister station WJW(AM) changed calls to WRMR in the 80s.

It's not codified anywhere in the rules, but the Media Bureau tends to be somewhat respectful of history, and if there's a historical case to be made for a non-standard call, the FCC seems to be willing to bend (but not completely break) - witness the University of Texas getting KUT(FM) for its new FM station in 1958, citing its long-ago (1920s) use of that three-letter call on AM, or the more recent return of KHJ in Los Angeles.

That's probably how WOW-TV became WOWT.

Truth is, callsigns these days are probably as much of an inconvenience as anything else to the FCC. The "facility ID number," not the call, is the primary way the FCC identifies stations nowadays - to them "WOWT" is really "65528."

[oldiesfan6479]

Truth is, callsigns these days are probably as much of an inconvenience as anything else to the FCC. The "facility ID number," not the call, is the primary way the FCC identifies stations nowadays - to them "WOWT" is really "65528."

The calls are actually (per the FCC TV Query) WOWT-TV, not WOWT(TV).

That aside, my real question is: at 10 PM when they put up their ID slide
(OK, that's real archaic...it's probably a graphic from their digital spot/event
player or even integrated into their news open), if the visual reads "65528"
instead of "WOWT-TV Omaha" will that be a legal legal ID to the FCC?

And how would the Omaha radio/TV geeks react on the Nebraska R-I board
to seeing "65528" at the TOH?

Of course, for a certain "almost a" daytimer AM in the Phoenix market, I hold
little hope of them being able to drop in an audio file of "11272" at sign-on
and sign-off--even if it is deemed legal!

[Scott Fybush]

For now, the rules still require "calls-and-city-of-license," with no legal requirement to air the facility ID number.

I suspect that at some point before long, we'll see a rulemaking petition that would allow DTV stations (and maybe even HD FM stations) to do their legal ID as part of their datastream, rather than requiring an aural or visual ID.

I'll be sorry to see the legal ID requirement go...but it's probably served its purpose by now.

[Ultimajock]

I know that some years later WMT-TV and WMT AM-FM in Cedar Rapids IA went their separate ways and the TV applied for a call with a W (maybe WMTV, WMTT ?) and it wasn't approved, so they became KGAN-TV.

...they'd have never gotten WMTV; that call has been on Channel 33/15 in Madison WI since '54...

[bpatrick]

Some of these examples are not like the others.

KDKA-TV and WWJ-TV were able to take those calls because they were co-owned with existing grandfathered examples of non-standard calls. Westinghouse already owned KDKA(AM), and CBS already owned WWJ(AM), and FCC practice has long allowed such "brand extensions." Recent examples have included WWL-FM in New Orleans and WBZ-FM in Boston.

In the case of WJKW/WJW-TV, the FCC was willing to allow the old 3-letter call to be preserved when former sister station WJW(AM) changed calls to WRMR in the 80s.

It's not codified anywhere in the rules, but the Media Bureau tends to be somewhat respectful of history, and if there's a historical case to be made for a non-standard call, the FCC seems to be willing to bend (but not completely break) - witness the University of Texas getting KUT(FM) for its new FM station in 1958, citing its long-ago (1920s) use of that three-letter call on AM, or the more recent return of KHJ in Los Angeles.

That's probably how WOW-TV became WOWT.

Truth is, callsigns these days are probably as much of an inconvenience as anything else to the FCC. The "facility ID number," not the call, is the primary way the FCC identifies stations nowadays - to them "WOWT" is really "65528."

I figured as much about KDKA, knowing that Westinghouse had long owned the radio station.  I also suspected, but didn't want to say it, that the FCC probably does respect history when it comes to these legendary old call letters (the original WWJ radio station in Detroit went on the air shortly after KDKA).  One heritage station whose television calls were slightly modified was WBT Charlotte.  When what was then Jefferson Standard Broadcasting got the license for a television station there, they were going to call it WBT-TV, but someone suggested it be simplified to WBTV, and so it was...and is, even though Raycom owns the television station today.

I wonder, when I post old Atlanta and Cincinnati schedules from the late '50/early '60s, how Crosley ever got away with identifying its stations as WLW-T, WLW-C, WLW-D, WLW-A, and WLW-I, or how Ch. 2 in Terre Haute, IN has long gotten away with W-TWO.

[mleach]

About call letters..other than KDKA, KYW and KQV why weren't there more "K" stations east of the Mississippi ? Where as there are/were quite a few of "W" stations to the west from Texas to Iowa and other states too.

Even though its a radio station, wonder what is the story with Hampton Roads' WGH? In 1984 WGH AM/FM became "WNSY" and the FM later went with "WRSR" (?) but in 1986 both AM/FM stations went back to WGH. How did they do it?