Is WWMT's top of hour ID in legally correct form?

[MWmetalhead]

For several years now, every TOH ID I've seen printed on screen says, "WWMT-DT Grand Rapids | Kalamazoo | Battle Creek."

To be legally correct, shouldn't Kalamazoo be the first listed city? WWMT is licensed to Kalamazoo, not Grand Rapids!

[bosco]

MW,
Been retired from show biz for 7 years, so I had to go online to dig this out:

FCC Rules 73.1201 (b) (2)
A station may include in its official station identification the name of any additional community or communities, but the community to which the station is licensed must be named first.

Now, to find someone at the FCC who actually cares.

[TC Talks]

Now, to find someone at the FCC who actually cares.

Here's the correct answer.

[Bull Shannon]

FCC Rules 73.1201 (b) (2)
A station may include in its official station identification the name of any additional community or communities, but the community to which the station is licensed must be named first.

Now, to find someone at the FCC who actually cares.

I'm curious just how much the FCC would actually care, since Nielsen labels the market DMA the exact same way as WWMT lists it in their ident, and as far as I can tell, the FCC uses the Nielsen names for their own "Television Market Areas."

Besides, if the FCC really wants to be a stickler about correctly identifying the community of license, then maybe that license should be based on where the transmitter is physically located — especially when you consider that WWMT, WOOD, WXMI, and WOTV all have their transmitters within fairly close proximity to each other in Barry County while WZZM's is way up in Newaygo County.

[MWmetalhead]

For better or worse, WWMT (originally WKZO-TV) was licensed to serve the community of Kalamazoo.

The TX site was not always located near Gun Lake. In the station's infancy, the TX site was in or near Kalamazoo.

Because the COL is Kalamazoo, regardless of where the TX site is located, WWMT must provide "city grade" signal strength to Kalamazoo.

I thank you, bosco, for confirming what I suspected! The TOH legal ID indeed is improper.

[edj]

The Kalamazoo COL is due to spacing and being co-owned with WKZO AM. I believe at that time co owned stations could only use the same calls if the COL is the same.

It was also South Bend’s de facto CBS station until UHF came along a few years later, due to the transmitter location at the time.