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Have you ever noticed that when you wake up in the morning you mostly hear “Time to wake up with K98.3” or “WBLS will be back after this short break” on turning on your radio?
The point to notice here is the radio station name in the first line starts with K while the second name starts with W.
It’s not only with the name of stations K98.3 or WBLS that starts with K or W, but most radio stations’ name starts with K or W.
Now you might be thinking that it’s absolutely right, but why do radio stations begin with K or W?
So, don’t worry about it as this blog post will clear your suspense.
Why Do Radio Stations Begin With K or W?
There is only a four-letter identification code from which the name of radio stations can get started.
Although radio hosts give a catchy name to their station for morning announcements and other advertisements.
But you’ll notice that these two letters are always available in the name of every station.
And it’s been happening since 1912 people started to use telegrams for transmission purposes.
The main reason behind starting the radio station name with K or W is the international radiotelegraph conference that was attended by multiple countries in 1912.
At the conclusion of that meeting, every country was assigned a specific letter that they will use for radio and television signal broadcasting.
So, in that meeting letters W, K, N, and A were assigned to the united states for broadcasting.
For further national classifications of assigned letters, ‘N’ and ‘A’ were given to the military stations. And ‘K’ and ‘W’ were given to the local broadcasters.
When the authorities further divided commercial letters, they assigned the letter ‘W’ to the stations that were located on the east side of the Mississippi River.
And the letter ‘K’ was assigned to the stations that were located at the west of the Mississippi.
What do the letters after ‘K’ or ‘W’ Means?
Majorly there are three letters after ‘K’ or ‘W’ and they represent different things. Sometimes these three letters are used to represent different networks that own multiple radio stations under them.
The most common example of these networks is “WABC”, “KCBS”, and “WTBS”.
Other than that, In some cases, these three letters that come after ‘K’ and ‘W’ means the actual number of the radio station. ‘KTWO’ or ‘WTBS’ are the best examples to understand this case.
![Why Do radio stations begi with K or W - Meaning of rest 3 characters](https://techmediaarc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Why-Do-radio-stations-begi-with-K-or-W-Meaning-of-rest-3-characters.webp)
It can also be the abbreviation or acronym of the actual name of a radio station. Such as “WTTW” stands for “Windows to the World”
An interesting thing regarding the letters after ‘K’ and ‘W’ is there’s a radio station in St. Louis which has the combination of these letters.
It’s a sports radio station named “KRAP”
So, this division was done after the conference, but the radio station that was already broadcasting before this rule didn’t change the name. Because this law wasn’t implemented on them.
Why Do We Even Need Call Letters Today?
You might be thinking that today we have very advanced technology then why do broadcasters still call the same letters today?
So, the reason is that these letters mean they have unique identifiers for the purpose of serving content.
Although radio stations nowadays do their branding with quite handsome names, it’s possible that in some other cities any other station might have the same name.
But, these call letters will make the difference between both radio stations.
Rule’s Exception And Reason Behind Exception:
There’s an exception to this rule and the exception is that not all radio stations follow this call letter rule.
So, it might be possible that you hear some radio stations starting with “W” on the west coast.
One of the reasons for this exception is that when the call letter boundaries were assigned not all the radio stations changed their call letters.
Also, there was a short period of time all new stations were assigned with the letter ‘K’. No matter what’s the geographical location of that station.
There’s a reason behind these known and intentional exceptions and that reason is “Marketing”.
Some owners file special requests for the acquisition of special call letters that don’t follow the rule. WACO station is the best example of it.
As we know that this radio station is located in Waco Texas. According to geographical location, the first call letter of this station should be “K” but due to special request its first letter is ‘W’
You might also have seen some radio stations only have three call letters, or some don’t follow the rules.
The reason, these stations are not following the rules is that these stations can be traditional radio stations.
The names were decided when the selection of the combinations was allowed without any regulation.
Conclusion:
So, now you know the actual reason behind starting the radio station’s name with K and W is the international conference held in “1912”.
But still, there’s an exception in the call letters of a few radio stations that have been explained in the post.
Do let us know in the comment section if we’re missing something.
![Muhammad Talha](https://techmediaarc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Talha.jpg)
Being a radio enthusiast I know that it’s very difficult to get the information available on the internet for radio lovers. Also, sometimes it’s not satisfactory. That’s why I set up a website to share my helpful knowledge and best products with the amazing community of radio lovers.
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