Call letter origins

Mar 22, 2009 3:31 am
From Michael Leddy in Orange Crate Art:
You may listen to a radio station daily, but do you know what its call letters really mean? If not, try Call Letter Origins. Charming and no doubt occasionally fanciful bits of lore abound therein.

Some of my favorites:
CFLC: "Canada's Finest Little Community" (Brockville, Ontario).
KAND: Wolf Brand Canned Chili (Corsicana, Texas).
WLBB: "We Love Butter Beans" (Carrollton, Georgia). A Judge Tisinger, the station's first owner, liked his beans.
WMBD: "World's Most Beautiful Drive" (Peoria, Illinois). That drive would be Peoria's Grandview Drive.
WPLJ: "White Port and Lemon Juice" (New York, New York). I know that one from the Mothers of Invention recording of "WPLJ."

I'm surprised to learn that New York's WMCA (home of the Good Guys of my musical youth) is named for the Hotel McAplin, the station's first home. And New York's WOR? "World of Radio." These stations all survive (CFLC as CFJR), most of them programming the syndicated stuff one can hear up and down the dial. (What dial?)