Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Radio Stations/Archive2

The project WikiProject Radio and television is now called WikiProject Radio Stations, and will now focus on articles relating to radio stations. --Marknew 10:14, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Thoughts on call letter conventions

I think call letter conventions established for the United States will work equally well for stations in Canada and Mexico; e.g. XETRA-AM in Tijuana, CHUM-FM in Toronto, etc. One possible problem is that the FM station with the call XETRA is identified in Wikipedia as XETRA-FM. Does this mean that the Mexican government does not recognize calls with the -FM and -TV suffixes? Another issue are FM stations, such as WPKO in Bellefontaine, Ohio, which are identified by call letters unique to the station and thus are not officially identified with the -FM suffix. (The same might be true of some television stations; e.g. WSYX in Columbus.) I'm moving WPKO to WPKO-FM for now, but that may need to be revised in the future to "WPKO (FM)" or some such. -- SwissCelt 13:35, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

It appears that, from looking at the CRTC website, Canada uses the same suffix format as the FCC (-TV, -FM), with no suffix for AM stations (or if the letters are unique to the station). With regards to the situation in Mexico: you may find something on the COFETEL website, but only if you can understand Spanish! COFETEL --Marknew 15:29, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Also, in the United Kingdom it's common for stations to be identified by a single name even if multiple transmitters are used (e.g. BBC Radio Merseyside). This sets a handy precedent for North American stations, such as Drive 105, which involve multiple transmitters. I think, though, in keeping with the UK convention, the station name should be used for the namespace, and associated call letters (if any are known; I'm not entirely sure UK transmitters have call letters which are known to the general public) should be used to redirect to the station name, using the North American convention. (As an aside, I'd refrain from calling Drive 105 a "mini-network", as it confuses the issue further. "Station with multiple transmitters" is accurate, concise, and avoids contention over what constitutes a radio network.) -- SwissCelt 13:35, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

UK radio stations do not have call letters which are known to the general public; indeed, the technical specifications spreadsheet at the Ofcom website uses station names as the main identifier, rather than any ITU standard callsigns. [1] [2]. --Marknew 15:29, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand the need for appending a parenthesised identifier such as (AM) or (FM) to the main title (call sign) of a radio station article. In some cases, FM is part of the call sign, constituting a six-character call sign, to differentiate it from an AM sibling of the same name. But the given four letter call sign is sufficient for FM or AM stations without a sibling. For example, on August 13, 2005, User:SwissCelt moved the WRFD page to WRFD (AM). I submit that this is redundant since (AM) in the title does nothing to disambiguate the call sign, and is in fact just an attribute of the station. It is, in effect, to use database parlance, the use of a "loaded key". Earpol 18:32, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

• It's important to remember that sometimes a callsign has to be disambiguated from something that isn't a broadcast station at all (e.g. WFDF), so "has a sibling on another band with the same callsign" isn't the only valid reason for an (AM) or -FM disambiguator. Bearcat 19:00, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

• May I propose a simple rule? For U.S. stations that are identified by callsigns, the article title should be the official callsign as issued by the FCC. If the official call sign includes a -TV or -FM suffix, then that suffix should be included in the article title, even if it is not needed to disambiguate from some other station. For example, in Cleveland there is a station that has the offical callsign WGAR-FM. There is currently no WGAR (AM) that I am aware of. So, I have entitled the article WGAR-FM. The only exception to this should be if a parenthetical is needed to disambiguate from some other station's callsigns or from some non-radio acronym. We don't need to put (AM) or (FM) parentheticals in titles when they are not needed. --Hillrhpc 05:09, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree. According to the FCC website, suffixes are only used when necessary to disambiguate and they will not issue a suffix if it is not needed. I don't know why WGAR would have one, perhaps an AM, TV or LP station was planned, but never done. If one was planned it was probably a few years ago, since it isn't in the database as an application. The page with call sign information isn't working, so there was no help there. Anyway, can this now be added to the project page? -- Kjkolb 12:26, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

USRadio Template

There exists a template, {{USRadio}}, which attempts to list radio stations in each state by several sort criteria (e.g. by call letter, frequency, city of license, etc.). Unfortunately, as this is not an automated process, these are very incomplete, and probably never will be complete, because people will not be expected to make changes in several different sorted pages when adding or changing information about a radio station. I've also commented in Template_talk:USRadio about this. Anyone have any thoughts about how this could be done better? DHowell 19:02, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

• That template can cause formatting problems on some articles. It is also a nav template so it should be located near the bottom of the article and not at the top in my opinion anyway. As to better, maybe, but other then letting it float across the entire width of the screen I don't have any real suggestions. Vegaswikian 04:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

New York City Radio Cleanup

I figured this would be the best place to discuss this issue, since this project is full of people who can be useful in this subject. Recently, an AOL user who has been making sloppy contributions to various US television stations has done similar work with many New York City Radio stations. Such examples of his work include WBLS, WRKS-FM, and WABC (AM) (which has been cleaned up to some extent), among others. I was wondering if I can get some help in cleaning up these articles, as I don't have the time to work on every single one. ErikNY 03:00, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Taking a second look, it seems like WBLS hasn't been affected (as of right now). But other stations that have been affected include WBBR (when it was WNEW (AM)), WNEW-FM, WFAN (when it was WNBC (AM)), WPLJ, WWPR-FM, WPAT, WYNY (now-defunct), WKTU, WQHT (FM) and WQCD. Other articles that he has contributed to such as WSKQ, WHTZ, WAXQ and WLTW has already been cleaned up by myself. ErikNY 13:24, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

The United Kingdom

There's an awful lot of US talk (callsigns and the like) on this page, and not a lot of collaboration going on with regards to the UK's radio stations. I've done a bit of work myself on the articles Signal 1, Kerrang! 105.2, Xfm, Galaxy Manchester and others. Recently, I've added logos from Media UK to the major London stations as well as stations I've written articles for. However, I'm not sure whether adding all the ex-GWR / EMAP logos etc., which are just the same logo with different text, is a productive use of Wiki server resources, especially with GCap up in the air and the logos likely to change. So what are other people doing for the UK radio articles? Smileyrepublic 10:45, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Treatment of networks requires more care

There are now a number of articles which cover groups of stations, rather than (in my view properly) treating them as individual stations which happen, temporarily, to share the same programs and branding. Editors should take note that the U.S. regulatory structure does not include networks; all stations are licensed as independent entities, nearly always one per transmitter. (Shortwave broadcasters are the only significant exception.) Even stations which happen to be simulcasting at the moment did not start out that way (non-commercial stations excluded); each license has a unique history which should be detailed in an article identified by that facility's current callsign. At any point one or more of the stations in such a network may be sold, rebranded, or break the simulcast for some other reason. (I exclude non-comms not for reasons of official status, which is no different, but because many networks of non-commercial stations were in fact started with entirely new licenses, such that individual stations have no individual histories beyond sign-on date.)

In most industry references, aside from Dr. Bruce Elving's FM Atlas, translators and boosters are ignored. They rarely have interesting histories and are prohibited by law from originating programming. The only translators I can think of which ought to have articles are W276AQ and K200AA, the former because of a legal battle and the latter because it's one of only two stations licensed on that channel.

The only other country I can speak from some knowledge of (as an interested observer and not a participant) is Canada. In Canada, second and subsequent stations in a network are called "rebroadcasters", and once granted are licensed part-and-parcel with the "parent" facility. Changing the programming on such a station requires the written consent of the CRTC, even if it's just to add local advertising or a regular newscast. These stations range in facilities from little 10-watt satellite repeaters in the middle of nowhere, to full class-C operations serving major metropolitan areas. Most of the time, they do not merit individual articles, and often do not merit even frequency mentions—some of the CBC province-wide networks have more than 40 rebroadcasters. Sometimes, though, a station which is currently licensed as a rebroadcaster may have begun as an independent station, or may have a large amount of local programming, in which case an article would be justified. (An example here might be CITE-FM-1 (102.7 Sherbrooke), which does or at least did local drive-time programming on weekdays, despite being a rebroadcaster of CITE-FM (107.5 Montreal).)

121a0012 03:23, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class and good B-class articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles on radio stations? Please post your suggestions here. Thanks a lot! Walkerma 04:43, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous

I mentioned a few topics up that I wanted assistance for cleaning up New York City radio articles. That has more or less been taken care of, but now, the same person, using multiple ip's (mainly AOL ip's), is going after Los Angeles and Philly radio stations. Just look at the articles for KZLA and WPEN for examples of his work. I wouldn't be surprised if he went after other U.S. markets as well. His trademarks include not wikifying anything, mentioning every little format adjustment and ownership change and ratings for the station at the time, while using very short sentences in places and using certain words repeatedly. Something must be done to make sure that these articles are cleaned up as quickly as possible. ErikNY 02:27, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Proposals

I have been doing work with some these station articles outside of the project, some of the work as been renaming articles to line up with FCC DB, disambiguate, nav template development, et al. I have come across some things that i figure i would address as possible improvements. Pretty much all of these will concern station based in the Canada, United States, Mexico zone, but could apply elsewhere. Sorry for the breakdowns, i just think it would make an easier read.

Disambiguations and Article Names

When i build out or work on an nav temp, i try to match up the calls with that of the fcc db, now in doing that you might come across a call that could apply to multiple stations so you build out a disambiguation, well the system that i have been using now is the following examples, if a call refers to multiple outlets licensed in the same place then something, along the like of WPFB, if in different places then along the likes of WCKY. I believe that the extra information on the disambig, though some might believe is extraneous, is needed, epically in explaining what the difference are between the stations for those who are not well versed in broadcasting stations set up in North America.

As for station names, i believe that all United States stations should line up as close as possible to the respective call letters as listed in the FCC DB. So this would keep many the way they currently are, but if a station is such as WTTT-FM or WRRR-TV and has no other station that would disambiguate that call then WTTT should redirect to WTTT-FM and WRRR to WRRR-FM, which is the standard as current as i see. Also such as WEEE, with WEEE being an AM station, that might have a WEEE-FM and or a WEEE-TV that an appropriate disambiguation page be created and WEEE be named WEEE (AM), which is also in use. I also propose the following, their will be on occasion you will find a FM station, i.e. WUUU, that has a corresponding WUUU-TV which would require disambiguation, on the premise that according to the FCC Db WUUU does not have an -FM suffix that the name of the station should follow the convention for the AM stations of the same way, so WUUU's article would be WUUU (FM) with WUUU-FM redirecting to it. Example would be WETA (FM), WETA-TV, and the disambiguation WETA (while not a true broadcast disambiguation the idea sill is in place). I don’t know how as of yet this would for similar situations in Canada and Mexico (or other countries that use "alpha" calls), but the fcc db does list license information for stations in those countries, though i can not say how accurate they are and they do not all follow the -FM, -TV US standard.

I think once that a name standard is set on that it might be a good idea to update the information at WP:NC.

The FCC database information about Canadian and Mexican stations is extremely inaccurate, for a reason: the FCC has no regulatory interest in the actual stations. The coordination treaties provide for a system of notification and consent for those locations and bands that require it; once the FCC has been notified of a new facility in operation, they have all the information they need to implement the agreements. So the FCC databases include only those facilities for which the relevant treaty requires notification, and are never updated for non-notifiable changes (such as changes in callsigns). In the particular case of Canada, Industry Canada never withdraws notifications except in a few very rare and specially-negotiated cases, so U.S. stations must protect (e.g.) the station on 1510 that hasn't existed in Sherbrooke for two decades. Thus, non-U.S. information in the FCC database should not be relied upon except in conjunction with appropriate sources from the station's domicile. (Industry Canada makes its broadcast database available; I'm not sure about the Mexican equivalent.) 121a0012 22:43, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok good, thanks for the clairfication. --Boothy443 | comhrá 01:39, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I've made a proposal on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions to update the text there to reflect where I believe our current consensus stands. I think the text that's there now is sending some editors astray. 121a0012 05:49, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I want to expand on one part of the disambiguation that i forgot to mention, current stations that have calls of "significance" that were used by other stations but are no longer used. I think that the precedent should be set that current station use should be listed. For example, a television station currently uses the call WNNN, it is also the only station that currently uses the WNNN call, but in broadcasting history (could be in the same market or in another market) there were other stations that used WNNN call, such as a WNNN AM (WNNN (AM)) station and a WNNN-FM. Now the WNNN (AM) goes by WHHH and the WNNN-FM is now WQQQ-FM. My proposal would be that WNNN direct users to the article of the station that currently uses the call and not to a disambig, for the reason that no other current station uses the WNNN derivative. That at the top of the WNNN article their should be a disambig notice saying "For broadcast stations that previously used the WNNN call letters, see WNNN (disambiguation)", then create a Disambiguation page using the "{call} (disambiguation)" format for title, and then saying something along the likes of WCAU (disambiguation), though the wording is room for improvement. I believe this a better way to disambiguate article of this type to better differentiated between a station that is currently using a particular call from stations that used to use the same call. --Boothy443 | comhrá 01:39, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

One other point on this. The IACO airport codes for all mainland US airports is a 4 letter code beginning with K. So there will be a number of cases where the airport code and a station name are the same if the station only is listed with the unqualified call sign (XXXX rather then XXXX-TV). Same for Canada except that they start with a C. Vegaswikian 03:33, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, FWIW, there's no case in Canada where an airport's ICAO code will conflict with a broadcast station's callsign. Canadian airports exclusively use ICAO codes beginning with CY, and while CY is technically within Canada's range of ITU prefixes, no Canadian broadcast station has ever actually been licensed to take a CY callsign. The only ITU prefixes currently in use in Canadian broadcasting are CB, CF, CH, CI, CJ and CK, and those aren't even close to full yet — Industry Canada's list of available callsigns still has hundreds of free combinations just within those six prefixes. And if and when they do fill up, CG and CX are still available before the CRTC even has to think about CY. And even if that ever happens, they might very well start opening the V and X calls instead. Just FYI, anyway. Bearcat 02:09, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Categories and Templates

I have come across with a concern with cats being used; this mainly applies with geographic categories, the television stations in "blah" (on the city level), and the use of these categories in-line with templates. This applies universal for TV and Radio. When i have built out templates, i have built them out on a per market basis, the information i use roughly corresponds with the market definitions used by Neilson for TV (DMA) and Arbitron for radio, it should be noted that Neilson (210 markets [3]) and Arbitron (297 markets [4]) markets are not the same, they are based of the same idea, they group stations geographically by physical location (transmitter), not by signal reach. Arbitron gives us a list of their definitions [5] where as Neilson does not. As a source for station in markets i have been using http://www.tvradioworld.com/ for my source for list of stations in a given market, so far i have found the list to be fairly accurate, though i have found some discrepancies but very few, also according to their FAQ "Listings are organized by geographical location of the station's city of license or transmitter location. In the USA, listings intend to mimic Arbitron's radio markets and DMA television markets definitions. " I would guess that some people are using http://www.radio-locator.com/ or some local source, the problems i have with these are that in simple major city search on radio-locator gives a 40 mile radius for a city, the problems with this are 2; first their are markets that will be outside the 40 mile radius, and second, in areas like the east coast, the markets are smaller so the 40 mile radius will display stations that are outside market definition (their are some stations that are in dual markets but these are not a lot and usually apply to stations that are on the border between two markets or are major players in multiple markets, an example would be WHFS when it was on 99.1 where it was located in both the Washington and Baltimore markets). So basically the nav templates should, and so far they pretty much all do, to market defs. tvradioworld also list markets for Canada based i suppose on a corresponding Neilson and Arbitron type companies in Canada, who they are off hand i don't know. This leads in to the category issue.

Markets span multiple jurisdictions (city, county, state/province) but our categories don’t. Most of the categories we use so far are of the (lowest level) "Radio/Television station in (City/Region)", the problem is a lot of stations don’t have their transmitters/studios or both in, usually, said city though they serve the market of the cities name. My first proposal would be not to use the Category:Radio/Television stations in (City/Region) as the template cat or first cat but use something along the lines of Category:Radio/Televison stations serving the "Blah" market which would give a broader geographic scope, and i would have no problem linking that category to the category for the central city or cities for the market or a category that groups the media for said city. Another problem is the placement in state/province categories because as stated above markets have a tendency to span multiple state/provinces. If you put the market categories in the "Radio/Television stations in state/province" your associating stations in a state/province with that state/province because it shares a common market that are in the state/provinces in question, it's happened before. Also using the state/province cat on the templates multiplies associates stations with multiple state/provinces though they’re only physically in one state/province, but are listed in multiple because they share the common market. The only solutions i can see are; 1 just leave it as "Radio/Television stations in state/province" in the market categories, 2 individually tag each article with the "Radio/Television stations in state/province", or 3 (kinda similar to 1) create a category like "Radio and Television markets serving state/province" and then put that category in the "Radio/Television stations in state/province" categories. I don't know.

Sorry for this being long and drawn out and I hope that everyone understands what I am trying to say, these just some observations and improvements that see that can be made, and i figure i bring it up so that it can be across the board rather then one person. I might get into a more ideas later, but I’ll leave it as is. Also i am cross posting to the Television group being that issues here also apply to that group. So i suppose discuss away, and I’ll try to answer questions, if and when they come along to the best of my ability. --Boothy443 | comhrá 10:20, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, both Arbitron and Nielsen markets are based on advertising markets, and only indirectly on the location of a station's facilities. Both systems use a very similar market-definition methodology: Arbitron calls theirs "Area of Dominant Influence"; Nielsen's is a "Designated Market Area" but the concept is the same. Neither company assigns stations to markets on pure geography: they identify core metropolitan areas (on a county-by-county basis in most places), and then add additional surrounding counties to the market on the basis of employment, commuting, advertising-market, and other economic indicators. Stations which are located in the survey area, or which market to and have measurable listenership in the metro counties, are considered to be a part of the market. Stations may be a part of more than one market; some markets include other markets (the Worcester Arbitron market is part of the Boston ADI), and some stations may be geographically positioned to serve more than one market (e.g. stations on Long Island also serve parts of southen Connecticut).

The FCC uses a combination of Arbitron and BIA information to determine market concentration in rated markets; Nielsen DMAs are used in ithe mplementation of cable and satellite must-carry rules. (This means, for example, that foreign stations count as part of the market for determining ownership caps.) So this would seem like a more useful scheme for categorization. 121a0012 22:59, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the clairfication on the issue, makes it sound a better. I aguree with your ideas, don't see why i would not. My question is how do you propse to implement them, just out of curiousity. --Boothy443 | comhrá 01:39, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Broadcast Bandit Page

In regards to the two messages I've left above, I have decided to create a page devoted to this problem user. You can find it here. ErikNY 16:45, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

The infobox has broken lots of pages

The new-style infobox has broken the pages the old-style one was on, including Capital FM, Signal 1 and Galaxy Manchester.

Instead of a neat, tidy infobox covering the basics of frequency and format in the top-right, we've got a big pile of blank space and lots of irrelevant fields to do with "classes of licence" and "meaning of callsign".

I'm pretty annoyed about this, having spent quite a long time on UK radio articles. Thanks.

(Having said that, the last time I posted a message up here, I got sod-all response. Talk amongst yourselves, Yanks.) 86.138.10.139 19:28, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

• The above comment was written by me; something happened which logged me out for some reason. Smileyrepublic 19:29, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

• • I designed the new infobox to automatically hide fields which were not being used (such as callsign meaning and class). It appears that an anonymous editor decided to remove these features from the infobox, leaving the mess we currently see on the UK radio station pages. If you compare this revision with this, you should be able to see what I mean. --Marknew 07:09, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Category sorting

Quick question about category sorting: is it policy that stations should always be sorted by the second letter of their callsign, or does this only apply to categories in which all radio stations have the same first letter? My understanding was the latter, but I've now seen a few people apply it to categories where the articles are a mix of C, K and W (and occasionally X and V) stations, so I thought I should ask for clarification. Bearcat 23:01, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

• Bearcat brought this to my attention today since I was one of the editors doing this. Personally it would be better to use one all of the time. No concerns about deciding which one to use in each case. If you look at border stations, they can really be placed in two categories since they often are consider local on both sides of the border. Breaking out the categories by the second letter provides a list in the categories that is formatted better then having them listed under one letter or the US under only 2 letters. Vegaswikian 03:25, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
  • What concerns me is that I think the value of some categories is reduced if they're sorted by the second letter. Frex, Category:Contemporary hit radio stations, where under H there's KHTS, which is in California, WHTZ from New Jersey, and CHNO which isn't even in the same country as the other two. The W, K or C is the most important letter in the callsign — sorting by the second letter was instituted as a technical solution to the fact that if every station in a category began with the same first letter, there was only one sort key and thus the wiki software would arrange the category page as one long column rather than three. It was never the ideal or the preferred sorting method; it was a workaround. In a category where W, K and C stations already coexist, IMO we really should stick to sorting on the only letter that actually tells you something specific about the station. Plus I really have to object to any sorting method that buries Canadian radio stations. Bearcat 19:34, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Does anybody have further input on this matter? Almost two weeks now and nobody's said a word about it except the two of us who raised the question in the first place. Bearcat 19:05, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

• I used the second letter when I created the Free FM page and category, mainly because that's the way it was done on other similar pages. But I do think it would probably be better to use the first letter for a category that is not local. Ideally these categories would be sorted by location (country, state, city), but I don't think that's possible with the current software. DHowell 01:25, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Call sign changes

What is the concensus for articles when a station's call sign changes? I think the old article should be kept since it was something that existed so retaining the entry would preserve the history up to that point. If the call signs change enough, then the article history could look messy. Without keeping the old article, histories can become interesting if the call sign gets used again. Vegaswikian

Moving an article from one title to another takes the edit history with it; it doesn't mess anything up. Of course we'd keep the old article -- it's just that it needs to be moved to the currently most appropriate title. We shouldn't keep separate articles, because the callsign can be reassigned -- and it's a really bad idea to disambiguate radio stations by titles like "CFBR (Sudbury)" vs. "CFBR (Edmonton)". Bearcat 22:58, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Well I think I just found a case of why the old article should be kept. KJUL-FM on 104.3 changed format and call sign on October 3. On November 7 KJUL is back on a different frequency. If the article have been moved to KCYE it would have required an admin to delete the redirect so that the article could be moved back. Just because a station dies does not mean it is gone. Also, if the old station, KBHQ I believe, had an article it would have made the change even more complicated. Vegaswikian 20:45, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I think it's a judgment call whether to keep the old article separate or move everything to a new page. If the original article is a stub or has only a couple of paragraphs of information, it probably makes sense to move it into the history section of the new article and create a redirect. But if the original article has a lot of information, or is expected to be historically significant (e.g. KMET or KNAC), keep it. However, if most of the content on the current page is historical (e.g. KSCA), I could see arguments for going either way. KJUL-FM is probably a rare case anyway--stations don't often leave the airwaves and come back a month later on a different frequency. Besides, it wouldn't have taken an administrator to move the page back, unless edits were made to the redirect page. See Move this page#Moving over a redirect. DHowell 01:54, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

My question would be, which station — KCYE or the new KJUL — can properly lay claim to the history of the old KJUL? If the new KJUL is technically a different station, and the old KJUL is now KCYE, then KCYE gets the history. I'd really need to know more about the situation. Bearcat 05:40, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

At least one of the old DJ's has been rehired and another company owned the rights to the call sign between the two stations being on the air. This is an interesting example if only because of the different parties involved. Vegaswikian 05:57, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

To answer this question, go to CDBS and search for applications under the current callsign. If it's the same station, it will have an extensive history of licenses (BLH), construction permits (BPH), transfers of control (BTC), assignments of license (BAL) and other activities. If it's a new station, the history will reflect that.

In this particular case, the record is quite clear. KCYE has a history as KJUL going back to 1987. The current KJUL was originally licensed as a class-A in 2001 as KBHQ. A class-A FM in Moapa Valley would not have been heard in Las Vegas; the company that owned it put it on the air for one purpose and one purpose only: to move it into the Las Vegas market. That company has no relationship evident in the legal record to Beasley Broadcast Group, the owners of KCYE. Thus, all material relevant to KJUL-that-was belongs in the KCYE article. The current KJUL is entirely unrelated to that station. 121a0012 03:44, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

And now I've done the full cleanup. 121a0012 04:32, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Deletion

Category:List of radio stations in Charleston has been listed for deletion on the grounds that there was only one station in the category. (I've since added one more whose article already existed but hadn't been filed, and the existing List of radio stations in Charleston article, which contains 18 further redlinks.) I've already noted in the CFD debate that precedent allows for this type of category (albeit named "Radio stations in..." rather than "List of radio stations in...") Please weigh in on the debate...and if you know the market (or the available information resources) at all, maybe write up some of the other stations to help fill the category in. Thanks. Bearcat 18:55, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

A Proposal

As a British editor of the Wikipedia, I fear that this project is in danger of becoming increasingly US/North America-specific, at the expense of articles for stations in other countries/continents. This is why I propose that this WikiProject is split into a number of sub-projects, which could be implemented using sub-pages (e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Radio Stations/UKandIreland, Wikipedia:WikiProject Radio Stations/USA).

An article template/infobox that is specifically designed for radio stations of that particular country (or countries) could then be developed from general designs (featuring things which are common to stations in all countries), which will be developed and maintained by participants from all countries on the main project page. This, I believe, will help to maintain a sense of common design between all radio station articles, while managing to accommodate any differences.

In addition, I believe that having separate talk pages for country-specific issues will aid communication and participation between members; issues that are not country-specific could continue to be discussed on this talk page.

Ok... if you can make any sense of what I've written above, then please comment! Thanks --Marknew 21:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I would vote to avoid separate projects, if at all possible. I think that the common elements of interest about a radio station, its branding, format, programming, and history, outweigh the differences. The major difference that I can think of is the American obsession with call signs. I think we can deal with this issue, and any other uniquely North American issues, separately, but make most of the discussion about common issues. (I guess Americans are also more concerned about broadcast frequency that non-Americans.)

And, I predict that the importance of call signs in the U.S. will diminish. As more and more stations are grouping together with a common format and name, e.g., Jack FM, Kiss, Alice, etc., and with ownership of stations being centralized into a few companies like Clear Channel and Infinity, and with satellite-fed programming, we will soon see the emergence of regional or even national stations, and I think that eventually people in the U.S. will come to identify stations by names instead of call signs. --Hillrhpc 20:08, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

In reality, to a very large extent people already do; it's primarily at the technical and datageekery levels that callsigns still predominate. The main reason we ended up insisting on the callsign for North American stations on Wikipedia is that North American brand names are rarely unique, and so you'd end up with a disambiguation-heavy mess for virtually every title in question (see, for example, the disambiguation pages I've already had to create at Q92, Z103 and Q107. And that's just three examples — ponder how many North American radio stations are called "The Fox" or "The Wave" or "Star" or "Jack FM", and tell me how the hell we'd title the articles if we permitted them to be titled with brand names.) But some people have already objected on the grounds that the callsign is rarely as well-known as the brand name. And for the record, I've seen both Canadians and Americans try to title articles with brand names rather than callsigns, so it's not just a Canadian difference. Bearcat 07:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

New stub proposal

I proposed a new stub, {{US-radio-station-stub}}, in Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals. While most US radio stations have been put under {{US-bcast-stub}}, I've seen some in {{radio-station-stub}}. A new sub-category would help alleviate confusion, and also help declutter the Category:United States broadcasting stubs by giving the radio station stubs their own stub template. DHowell 05:17, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I have created the template {{US-radio-station-stub}} and Category:United States radio station stubs. I don't know how it should get populated, though; manually, or with a bot of some sort. DHowell 00:40, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I have created templates and categories for the UK and Canada: {{UK-radio-station-stub}}/Category:United Kingdom radio station stubs, {{Canada-radio-station-stub}}/Category:Canada radio station stubs. --Marknew 10:07, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Article title discussion updated on WP:NC

I've updated WP:NC's section on article titles for broadcast stations, both with and without call signs, to reflect what I believe is the consensus view both here and in the technical side of the profession. I'd like to yank most of the discussion on WP:WPRS in favor of a reference to WP:NC, leaving only the more situation-specific details here. Comments? 121a0012 02:13, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Precedents

I updated this, as the old wording indicated local radio/tv stations were deemed non-notable, and not kept. However, I beleive the typical local station is genrally found notable and kept by consensus in AFDs. But low-power and non-licensed stations might not be included in that. So, please see what I did, and revert/edit, if I got it wrong, and indicate any concerns at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Precedents#local broadcasters. This isn't an official guideline, just a reflection of precedent. A fuller discussion of proper guidelines might be warranted elsewhere (if it hasn't happened already). --Rob 06:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of the brand name thing...

Could somebody please figure out a suitable alternate title for 88.9 Lancer Radio - Pasadena Campus Sounds? I even tried FMQ queries for both "Pasadena" and "all 88.9 stations in California" and got nothing. Does it exist on FM or not, and if so, what's the proper callsign? Bearcat 08:20, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

It's an unlicensd (Part 15) station, probably broadcast over a leaky coaxial cable, and thus has no callsign. (This is different from the Canadian practice where such stations are licensed and do have callsigns.) 121a0012 17:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah. Two comments, then:

1. I'm not sure that unlicensed stations with no callsigns that broadcast over a geographic area roughly equivalent in size to a postage stamp merit articles at all under Wikipedia precedent as it's currently defined. (By their own website's admission, you can pick them up on FM "if you're parked next to campus and the wind is blowing in the right direction")
2. Even if we do deem this notable enough to have an article, the title still needs to be changed in some manner. Bearcat 19:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Notability probably needs to be established for this station. How can you verify that it even exists? I suppose a name like 88.9 Lancer Radio could work. AfD? Vegaswikian 06:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

There is some evidence in Google's cache that the call letters for this station are KPCS. However, as it is an unlicensed micro-station, I think that what little information is there should be merged into the Pasadena City College page. DHowell 23:28, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

If it's an "unlicensed micro-station" then any call letters are figments of the operator's imagination. 121a0012 04:10, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Lancer Radio (88.9) AKA Pasadena Campus Sounds is an actual radio station it does not currently have call signs as it is no longer an FCC licensed radio station (but it does have FCC approval) it is a 24 hour broadcasted station. the old call signs were KPCS but they are not currently active as no FCC license is currently valid, but they do have FCC approval it is on the FM and can be heard with in a mile of Pasadena City College, it is technically seperate from Pasadena City College .. it is a chartered student club and is used staffed by students. it is used by Telecom classes and a majority of the students involved are telecom majors. the name of the station is [Lancer Radio 88.9 Pasadena Campus Sounds] they can be reached at(626)585-3235