I am confused by the article about radio stations who refer to themselves as "KISS". I thought only one station could have a call sign. As far as I know, 99.5 KISS in San Antonio is the only station with that call sign.
Hal Morris
San Antonio
Answer:
Hal is confusing "Call letters" with unofficial names radio stations use for formatic purposes.
It's true every American radio station has a unique set of LEGAL call letters issued by the F.C.C. And, if you listen near the top-of-the-hour to any American radio station, you'll notice it always announces a legal I.D. with its call letters immediately followed by the city of license.
Every station, by law, must identify itself once-an-hour with its licensed call letters and city of license.
But, that said, many stations prefer to be known by a name listeners are more likely to remember or a name that better suggests the type of programming it provides. Therefore, the rest of the time, most use made-up names that may or may not use a portion of their legal license name.
A good example of that is demonstrated in the article entitled, For Valentine's Day: Radio Stations With A "KISS" To Listen To which lists 10 popular radio stations across the U.S. who all refer to themselves as "KISS" in one form or another.
This is perfectly legal and common procedure used by almost every radio station. It only becomes confusing to a listener when possibly traveling from city-to-city and hearing various versions of the same apparent station name, as in the stations that use the "KISS" label.
As a further example, there are hundreds of radio stations who all share similar names with slight variations. For instance: "The Mix", "The Bone", "Hits", "Kickin' Country", "The Edge", etc.
