[BC] Allocation Philosophies

[Scott Fybush]

At 11:31 AM 7/20/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>On Wednesday 20 July 2005 00:05, Milton R. Holladay Jr. wrote:
> > Why did WTAM change to WWWE and back ?
>
>  If memory serves....
>  It was changed to WKYC by the same folks who owned the TV when they
>  bought it, more or less, then the Nick Milletti crowd bought it, and changed
>  format completely to all sports all the time, and also changed the call to
>  WWWE. When they sold it, the new owner was able to resurect the old
>  WTAM call, and so did, along with the format change away from all sports
>  all the time.

Lessee here:

It was WTAM originally, of course. In 1956, NBC unloaded it on Westinghouse 
in "exchange" for KYW, Philadelphia - this being the famous case wherein 
NBC was accused of threatening Westinghouse with loss of the NBC 
affiliation at its Philadelphia TV station (then WPTZ) if it didn't agree 
to trade Philly for Cleveland. So WTAM, Cleveland became KYW, Cleveland 
(WTAM-FM became KYW-FM and WNBK TV became KYW-TV, too), while KYW and WPTZ 
Philadelphia became WRCV and WRCV-TV. Westinghouse went to court, won, and 
in 1965 the forced trade was reversed, with Cleveland going back to NBC 
ownership and the KYW calls returning to Philadelphia with Westinghouse. 
Westinghouse had established a strong brand identity in Cleveland for "KY" 
by then, and NBC tried to keep it going with new calls WKYC AM-FM-TV. 
Milletti got the radio stations in the early 70s, turning WKYC(AM) into 
WWWE and WKYC-FM into WWWM. The AM went through a few more owners before 
landing with Jacor, which restored the WTAM calls - and no matter how many 
times Randy Michaels tries to claim that they were just looking for a call 
that ended in "AM" to go with the "AM 1100" imaging, and it was just 
coincidence that they ended up back where they started, I'm not buying it!

s