Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Radio Stations

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shortcut:
WT:WPRS
Archive
Archives
2005 2006 2007 2008


Contents

[edit] Template question

Is there a way to simplify the addition of database query templates such as {{RecnetCanada}} to radio station articles? I'd like to do it via an AWB batch run if possible, because it would be too time-consuming and eye-glazingly repetitive to do it manually, but I don't know if there's a way to automate including the call sign in the template link. I tried doing {{RecnetCanada|{{PAGENAME}}}}, and while that does submit the correct call sign inquiry to the database, it severely messes up the way the link actually displays on our article — the link showed up as (AM)&ccode=2&latd=&lond=&city=&state=&country=CA&zip=&party=&party_type=CANADA&jaws=0 Query the REC's Canadian station database for CHQR (AM) rather than just "Query the REC's Canadian station database for CHQR (AM)". Bearcat (talk) 22:26, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I just took a look at it and everything seems to be working *shrug*. JPG-GR (talk) 21:22, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Market templates, would like some concensus

I'd like to take on cleaning up the market templates (just the ones from the top 302 arbitron markets). I'd like some feedback on these items

  • templates associated with specific Arbitron market, should include only stations in that Arbitron defined market on the AM and FM lines. Radio and Records can be used as a reference. Pick any template (such as {{New York Radio}} and click on the Arbitron market rank for an example).
  • the  · character should be used as a separator (it's the most common and looks the best IMHO).
  • all templates should lines for
    • By FM frequency
    • By callsign
    • By AM frequency
    • By callsign
    • unranked stations? (i.e. anything that Arbitron doesn't track, I'm torn on this one, should they be included at all? This is a market specific template after all.)
    • transclusion of the radio markets template for that state (lists other market templates in the state and the list of radio stations in that state)
  • We can also add a line ordering the stations by their ranking in the last arbitron book (as available from the Radio and Records website) I think this would be valuable and it can be automated.

Thoughts?--Rtphokie (talk) 21:33, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed on the above. As for the unranked stations (which do appear in the ratings, just not the ones released to the public because all thats released to the public are the 12+ everybody 24/7 ratings) maybe we could get to some consensus as to what to include (all stations within 30 miles of market center? 50?). The problem with the ratings are the lower ranked stations are out of market and tend to dissappear and reappear depending on how the diaries are distributed and who gets a diary. Mr mark taylor (talk) 22:05, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Good luck with the chaos that would be cleaning these up. A few things to consider:
  • There is no reason to separate AM and FM callsigns, other than to make templates needlessly bigger. The current three row system works just fine.
  • Define "templates [...] should include only stations in that Arbitron defined market on the AM and FM lines" - what about those stations that cover and are ranked in MANY markets? It would be absolutely ridiculous to clutter, for example, WJR with multiple templates.
  • Addition of any kind of ratings ranked listing could violate WP:COPYRIGHT, WP:NOT#DIR, etc. When it comes down to it, they're unnecessary clutter for a market template anyway.
- JPG-GR (talk) 23:42, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Removing the non-commercial stations would be a disaster from an organization and navigational standpoint. I'm also strongly wary of including the Arbitron rankings in template form as they would almost certainly cross the line into copyright infringment. I'm 100% on-board with standardizing to the three lines (AM by freq, FM by freq, and ALL by call letters) with a standard separating character. That alone would be yeoman work which would serve the project tremendously. - Dravecky (talk) 00:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Now, call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure all the templates are all consistently the three-lined format (now that all those funky California ones have been updated). Personally, I'm all for putting together some guidelines to follow for these templates, but as for changes - I don't think many are needed or warranted. JPG-GR (talk) 00:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
For the sake of discussion, heres a sample 5 line template: User:Rtphokie/Albany. Dravecky raises in interesting point about market rank and copyright.

The suggestion that stations within X miles of the market is an interesting one. How do we determine the center of a market? Is a fixed distance from the market center the right thing to do? Should the class of the station and/or it's power be taken into account?--Rtphokie (talk) 03:03, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

In regards to User:Rtphokie/Albany, I find it to be grossly oversized as expected. The addition of the rank sections are meaningless without context, which is why I feel ratings should stay on the article pages (why on Earth would anybody need/want to navigate by in-market ratings?). JPG-GR (talk) 04:37, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Theres no need to navigate by in market rating when there are no numbers listed (that would be a copyright violation and Arbitron keeps those numbers hidden from the public if groups of radio stations don't subscribe to their service).
As for the stations within X miles: Within X miles of whatever the market city is. It's just an idea because the non-commercial stations don't get listed with the commercial ratings and there are also smaller FM and AM commercial stations that don't get listed in the ratings because they're not within the market area and don't have a powerful enough signal to reach the metro area. Mr mark taylor (talk) 16:37, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
What should X be?--Rtphokie (talk) 21:05, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I hesitate to set a fixed X because while a station's transmitter might be within (for example) 40 miles of the city-center its signal might not serve that city at all while a big stick station in a western state might easily serve a city 50 miles away. I don't have a simple, firm scientific solution for this but I also don't believe that one actually exists. - Dravecky (talk) 07:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, there is no magical number. It would be easier if there was, but who said life was easy? JPG-GR (talk) 17:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I put together a script that might help with this. Click on a city and it will show all transmitter sites within 30 or 50 miles. You can also adjust that radius once you display results. Transmitter locations are based on data from the FCC. Results are displayed in a table, on a map and in standardized text suitable for copying and pasting into a market template. Play with it a bit and maybe it will help us sort out this idea of what radius we should pick for most markets and what conditions would adjust that radius and by how much. Click here.
    • Firstly, we've already said that there is no magical radius that will work. It varies depending on the region and population. Secondly, based on the history of your mass-creating of things with scripts, I am VERY against the use of any script to create or modify any templates until EXTENSIVE testing has proven it's viability. JPG-GR (talk) 06:04, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
      • Why thank you for all your hard work as well. You misunderstand, this isn't intended as a finished tool for updating these templates. It's intended as something we can hopefully work into a finished tool. I recognize that there isn't a magic radius that will work for all markets, thats why there are options to try in this tool. Those options are there to generate discussion here. So far we are pretty clear on what shouldn't define a market (fixed radius, arbitron tracking, existing information in the templates), let's move on to what should define the market. So take a look at a couple of cities that you are familiar with and let's here some specifics on where the problems are. Perhaps this can be tweeked based on the station's class (Class A FM stations within 50 miles, Class D AM stations within 30 miles, LP stations within 10 miles, etc.) Point is, let's get the discussion going towards specifics of how these templates should be defined.--Rtphokie (talk) 14:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
        • I'm not entirely sure anyone said that the existing information in the templates is a bad way to define the market. I'd say, as a whole, the templates aren't in that bad of shape, just need a little tweaking. The worst problem with the templates at this point is improper callsigns and bad wikilinks. JPG-GR (talk) 15:33, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
          • There are missing stations in many of the templates. The biggest problem with the templates is a lack of standards. there are some psuedo standards but they aren't well applied or defined.--Rtphokie (talk) 18:02, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Templates addition, RFC

I'd like to add this to the Template section of WP:WPRS, comments, concerns, corrections? Anyone with more information about Canadian, UK, Australian or other market definition outside the US would be appreciated.--Rtphokie (talk) 13:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Market Navigation Templates

Navigation templates for use on at the bottom of radio station articles are available for a number of countries. Templates include the market name linked to the article on that metropolitan area along with rank (where available), followed by lists of stations organized FM frequency, AM frequency, and callsign for all stations reasonably receivable within the market. Templates may also include 4th line which provides links to other markets within that state or province. In the United States, links provided by the Radio Locator (see below) can be helpful in determining the practical reach of a particular station. Splitting into multiple templates by AM and FM is not necessary. In general markets which are not notable enough to warrant an article covering that metropolitan area are probably not notable enough to warrant a market navigation template and may already be covered by another market navigation template.

  • United States: Navigation templates are available for all Arbitron tracked radio markets and other markets as well. The template name should contain the Arbitron defined market name followed by 'Radio' (Example: {{tl:Nashville Radio}}). For other markets, templates should be named with the generally accepted name for the area followed by 'Radio'.
  • Canada: Navigation templates are available for Canadian markets. The template name should contain the market name (as defined by BBM Canada) or the followed by 'Radio'.
  • Other Countries: several other countries have market navigation templates available as well. Templates should be named using the maket name (as defined by the predominate market research company or government agency tracking these markets) followed by 'Radio'.
The concept is sound. Little too wordy for my tastes and in need of some copyeditting. JPG-GR (talk) 00:47, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
I probably went atoo far in trying to avoid U.S. centric wording. Anyone care to take a crack at copyediting?--Rtphokie (talk) 22:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Just for the record, there isn't an easy or reliable reference for exactly what the Canadian radio markets defined by BBM actually are, or at least none that I'm aware of. The Canadian templates mostly tend to be set up by county, where possible, or by broad regional groupings such as Westman or Estrie, which don't necessarily correspond precisely to BBM markets. Though if you know of an actual source for BBM market data, I'd love to know about it. Bearcat (talk) 00:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Looking at signal propagation maps and designating that certain stations are part of certain population markets is an excellent example of Original Research and has no place in Wikipedia.StreamingRadioGuide (talk) 09:10, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ratings info

I wanted to make sure everyone was aware of another, often overlooked, source for ratings information in the United State in addition to Arbitron and Radio & Records. Radio Research Consortium subscribes to Arbitron on behalf of hundreds of NPR, Corp for Public Broadcasting, and other non-commercial stations such as educational and religious stations and disseminates the information to them. The latest share info can be retrieved from their website for any market. When R&R calls a station #10, that may or may not be true because their lists include commercial stations only. The share info there should be reliable though. So I'm thinking that including share info from R&R or RRC is fine since it's published on those company's website. Any ranking info might be problematic. The traditional media gets away with it but it could be a source of trouble for Wikipedia.--Rtphokie (talk) 22:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

From: [1] "Remember that misuse of Arbitron or Scarborough data is considered to be copyright infringement. This includes use of data by non-subscribers." The RRC data is behind a user login for licensees only. The same applies to R&R data, which includes the notice that: "Ratings profiles are Copyright © 2008 Arbitron Ratings Company. May not be quoted or reproduced without the prior written permission of Arbitron. ".
The ratings items should be removed from the infobox template, because there is no source of Arbitron ratings data which is going to permit disclosure under the notion of "fair use", and people who don't know that will go around adding it back in.StreamingRadioGuide (talk) 08:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Radio stations in the Las Vegas Arbitron market

What is the deal with this relatively new category? There's already a perfectly good {{Las Vegas Radio}} template and Category:Radio stations in Las Vegas, Nevada category for these stations. Is this something we want to encourage or something we need to nip in the bud before there are 200 of these things? - Dravecky (talk) 09:04, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I would say nip it, but some might argue that the market category is more specific because Category:Radio stations in Las Vegas, Nevada should only include stations licensed to or with studios in Vegas (and that would go for any market/city). Mr mark taylor (talk) 14:19, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
The issue is that Category:Radio stations in Las Vegas, Nevada, as an example, is ambiguous if it is intended to cover the market. Also in the last series of renames on CfD, there are some editors who are taking the position that in the US, if a category name includes the city and state, it is city specific so that they are free to remove any other entries. While that does not appear to have consensus, it is hard to trace down that type of removal and since the category name is ambiguous creating a better name seems to be a wiser approach. Using Arbitron in the name also avoids other issues when a general area exists. Say for LA, is it the city, the county, the Greater Los Angeles area, the Los Angeles Basin or in the past the Los Angeles--Riverside--Orange County, CA CMSA? The name being discussed here is completely unambiguous. The other option as suggested above is to have a policy to no longer categorize by market and rely on templates. Then stations would be listed under their city of license, or other higher classification if there was no city category. That would also be a reasonable alternative. Given that the above category has existed without any apparent confusion for a few weeks, it is an understandable alternative. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Mark - nip it in the bud before the can of worms has spilled everywhere. JPG-GR (talk) 00:43, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
I would argue somewhat to the contrary (if I'm interpreting the request correctly). Using Arbitron or BIA markets is vastly preferable to any of the alternatives, at least for those markets which are covered by those companies. They are, after all, the third-party, reliable sources that the FCC itself uses to define radio markets for its ownership-concentration rules. Looking in my 2007 Arbitron Red Book, 206 of 302 radio markets (more than two thirds) are named for a single principal city; I see no reason why this project (as the maintainer of those categories) simply define the content of "Category:Radio stations of X" (where X is a U.S. placename) as being the stations in the X radio market, referencing Arbitron per WP:V and WP:RS. This would only require different categories for the 96 places where the market name is different (either contains multiple principal cities, as in "Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY" [#63], or has a sui generis name, like "Victor Valley, CA" [#121]). 121a0012 (talk) 01:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Leaving Arbitron out of the name leaves an ambiguous categroy. Category names are suppose to identify the contents without being ambiguous. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:13, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Then I cite my classic example - WJR, which appears in MANY Arbitron markets. Personally, I'd prefer we just stick with the state categories and not subcategorize geographically, but that's more to avoid things like this than anything else. JPG-GR (talk) 02:20, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Not to mention the stations that are in a market area and are not a part of the market. I guess the question is what is/were these categories intended to cover? If the answer is that there will be no tie in to the markets in any way, then that would be a valid answer. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:03, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
@JPG-GR: Actually, WJR does not appear in "MANY" Arbitron markets. It can be heard in many markets, sure -- I can hear it here -- but that does not mean that it is part of those markets (DX listening is economically negligible). What markets would you expect WJR to appear in besides Detroit, Toledo, and Ann Arbor?
@Vegaswikian: There are no "stations that are in a market area and are not a part of the market". There are stations that don't subscribe to a ratings service, and stations that don't appear in the ratings, but they are still in the market. (Even non-commercial stations are included in the FCC's market-concentration analysis; see, for example, this BIA analysis which was submitted to the Commission as an exhibit to a station transfer application.) 121a0012 (talk) 15:34, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of "Sister" station

The article for WDMN is currently flagged as needing a citation for the claim that it is a "Sister" station. The article asserts it is a sister station because it is owned by the same entity (Cornerstone Ministries), which is easily checked in the FCC database, which is already listed as a source.

Unfortunately, an editor "fixed" the example article prior to achieving agreement on how to resolve this issue, so the text no longer reflects the original language - so you'll need to back up in history to see the example I was using.StreamingRadioGuide (talk) 03:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

But I'm really asking - what is a "sister station", and why is that of any signficance in an encyclopedia article intended for a general audience (not a radio fan site).... Is every radio station in every Clear Channel cluster a "sister" station, and should we start adding them? To be a sister station, does it have to share facilities? Be in the same market? Or just the owner of the station claims it is?StreamingRadioGuide (talk) 13:05, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

"Sister station" and "co-owned" are the same thing. I think sister station is the more "in the biz" term. As someone who was "in the biz" for several years, the answer to all your questions is, yes. But generally "sister station" is only a station under the same roof, but as a whole, all 1,100 plus Clear Channel stations are "sister stations" and that can be repeated for every ownership group. Mr mark taylor (talk) 14:12, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
More practically, sister stations are co-owned and in the same market. Just because Cumulus owns both KTCK in Dallas, Texas, and WALG in Albany, Georgia, doesn't make them sister stations. So, no, you wouldn't list all 1100ish Clear Channel stations as sisters to every other station but you should list the four to seven they own in any given market. - Dravecky (talk) 20:34, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
The intended meaning was "Every clear channel station that shares a cluster", so I count your response as a "Yes".StreamingRadioGuide (talk) 00:21, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Consider this article for WEGO which states "It is owned by GHB Broadcasting and has several sister stations in North Carolina.". This implies that a sister station can be owned by the same owner, but not geographically in the same market. (Please don't "fix" this issue by updating this article)
Perhaps we should not be incorporating data as encyclopedic when we can't define what it means? or at least not tagging articles disputing an assertion that a station is a sister station...
Can a TV station be a sister station to a radio station? StreamingRadioGuide (talk) 03:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
The common industry understanding that I have is certainly that any two stations with the same "parent" (controlling organization) can be regarded as "sisters". (Often they will not share the same licensee since many operators use a different license-holding corporation for each station.) The better question to ask is, which sister stations are relevant? In the case of a large group broadcaster, it's probably the stations in the market. But, for Bob Bittner Broadcasting, which only owns two (soon to be three) stations, any one station represents a sizeable fraction of the whole, so it makes sense to list all of them no matter what market they are in. Judgment is the key, not bright-line rules. 121a0012 (talk) 03:21, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
The problems with fuzzy definitions is they give rise to disputes such as the one that started this discussion. "No Bright Line Rules" is not a wikipedia policy - it is completely contrary to the verifiability and no original research principles. I was not the editor who added the designation that it was a sister station, nor the person who challenged it. I was rewriting much of the article and didn't understand the reason for the challenge. My own opinion (implied by my line of questioning) is that there should be no sister information, as it is all "original research" in the absence of an objective definition that can be verified using independent sources. The fact that the editorial guidelines strongly discourage editors from writing about things they have a personal involvement with is for a good reason, and this is an excellent case in point. Creating a project doesn't mean that allows the project to igonre wikipedia's guidelines - like Wikipedia is not directory and that the target audience is the general public. Does anyone think a general reader of a radio article cares about the HAAT of the antenna?.StreamingRadioGuide (talk) 13:04, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Probably as much as a general reader of the John F. Kennedy article cares exactly where he spent his Easter holidays in his youth or cares about the precise elevation of Saskatoon. That is to say, not very much, but there will be some that do care and it's verifiable so why not include a basic fact like HAAT in the infobox? I wouldn't put HAAT in the article text but it's an ideal bit of info for an infobox. (By the way, the answers are Palm Beach, Florida, and 481.5 meters.) - Dravecky (talk) 13:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] station "x" is an affiliate of the Atlanta Braves radio network

We have large number of stations where the sentence "The station is an affiliate of the Atlanta Braves radio network, the largest radio affiliate network in Major League Baseball.[1]" was added by a script to the LEAD paragraph. I was researching WTKS-AM, which is listed with that text, but their call sign is not listed on the source.

Sporting affilitions are in constant flux. The factual claim that the Atlanta Braves network has the most number of affiliates belongs on a page about the Atlanta Braves or the Atlanta Braves Radio Network, not on every station that is or has even been an affiliate, as it is not an attribute of the station. Even if you disagree with that, it doesn't belong in the lead paragraph. Opinions?StreamingRadioGuide (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 00:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. 121a0012 (talk) 03:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, even though I'm the editor that put it there in the first place. (I was a lot newer at this back then and, yes, I did it by hand so no script is to blame.) I've taken the opportunity to clean up the WTKS (AM) article a bit, add a much-needed infobox, and correct the programming section. (Far more syndicated programming than just Braves baseball has left the station in the last year.) I concur than striking the phrase "the largest radio affiliate network in Major League Baseball" from these articles is warranted in most cases. - Dravecky (talk) 07:29, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] lists of radio stations by radio frequency

I've done some searching and I don't think there is one at all on here. Considering there are books which consist solely of listings of radio stations by frequency (or at least chapters of books), I would think we could come up with a comprehensive list. Someone looking for WGN might just decide to type in 720 AM instead. DandyDan2007 (talk) 23:14, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

It's easy enough to sort each state's list of radio stations by frequency, call letters, or city of license so I can't see a need for a special list of stations by frequency. And would the scope be national? Global? Would that person searching for WGN be any better served by finding a list of 20 US stations plus a bunch of Mexican, Canadian, and others with WGN buried in the middle? And what about the 85 or so North American AMs at 1310? Is that a useful way to find KTCK? Count me as opposed. - Dravecky (talk) 23:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to DandyDan's suggestion — we do, in fact, already have partial incomplete lists for 97.3 FM and 102.7 FM (full disclosure, I created the 102.7 list, but I did so mainly to forestall a person who was attempting to use that title as a redirect to one particular radio station on that frequency), and we do have "TV stations by channel number" lists. I do think it's a potentially useful navigation guide, in part because people might sometimes know the frequency and approximate location of a radio station but not know its actual call sign or real city of license. And some people might genuinely want to see such a list for reasons other than attempting to locate a particular station. But it is a big ongoing project that would most likely require a lot of people looking after it — and if done comprehensively, it should certainly use the wikitable style rather than the unformatted list style. Bearcat (talk) 01:11, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
And, no offense intended toward Bearcat, but those frequency lists are utter crap. Anybody who comes to an encyclopedia searching by the frequency of a radio station has no concept of radio whatsoever. There's useful dabpages and then there's ridiculous. JPG-GR (talk) 07:34, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
All of the (print) reference books I regularly use include one or more listings of stations by frequency. 121a0012 (talk) 06:30, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Print books, unlike our existing lists of radio stations by state, can't be re-sorted by each column so they contain multiple otherwise redundant lists. Wikipedia has no such limitation so we can use one big list for each state in a wikitable format to be sorted in any way the user wishes. - Dravecky (talk) 06:37, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Our existing lists of radio stations by state can't be re-sorted into lists of radio stations by frequency: if one is actually looking for a list of stations sorted by frequency, one would have to consult fifty different lists of radio stations by state. 121a0012 (talk) 07:18, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
WP:INFO. JPG-GR (talk) 16:23, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
The relevance of which is, what, precisely? 121a0012 (talk) 03:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:College radio stations in X

I don't recall a discussion about breaking up the not terribly large Category:College radio stations in the United States but apparently a couple of months ago some bold editor created Category:College radio stations in Oregon and a couple of days ago another was inspired to create Category:College radio stations in Georgia. Ignoring for the moment the slightly ambiguous nature of the latter category (precedent would have it "in Georgia (U.S. state)"), is this a category we want divided? I think it's bad precedent and over-categorization. If left unchecked, eventually we'll have a whole bunch of tiny by-state sub-cats of every possible format category. The folks at CfD will listen if we speak as a project, they said in a recent discussion. So do we nip this in the bud, encourage it, or what? The more people chiming in here, the better. - Dravecky (talk) 01:39, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a bit of over categorization when the nav boxes are already split up by state. We should have a mass list/category of stations by format (i.e. the Category:College radio stations in the United States or Category:Classical music radio stations in the United States categories). Mr mark taylor (talk) 02:22, 25 May 2008 (UTC)!
Format categories shouldn't be subdivided by state. This situation doesn't really meet either of the standard rationales for by-state subcategories: they aren't part of a comprehensive set being used to diffuse excessively large parents, and beyond geography itself there isn't any meaningful difference between being a college radio station in Oregon or Georgia and being a college radio station in Vermont or Florida or Montana. While diffusion of Category:Radio stations in Georgia (U.S. state) is probably valid, it should be done by market (the only cities with dedicated market categories right now are Savannah and Atlanta), not by format, and Category:College radio stations in the United States needs cleanup, not diffusion (for instance, there are clearly non-notable entries sneaking in that should be deleted, and non-AM/FM "stations" which only broadcast on the Internet should get bumped up into the Category:University and college media in the United States parent. Once those are done, however, absolutely no diffusion by format-in-state subcats. Bearcat (talk) 13:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
"College" is not a format; it is a kind of organization which might own a station. (The actual format might be news-talk, AAA, block-programmed rock, Contemporary Christian, or any of a dozen others.) It is reasonable to classify stations on the basis of ownership. That said, separate state categories do not strike me as particularly useful, for the reasons Bearcat notes. 121a0012 (talk) 07:24, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm no expert on the matter, but for what it's worth, "college" is considered a format in Canada inasmuch as there are specific operating licenses for "Campus Community" and "Campus Instructional." Within the industry, those two categories are considered comparable to "News/Talk," "CHR," "Hot AC" or any other format. The U.S. situation may be different, I just thought I'd offer this perspective. --Adam 216.106.108.16 (talk) 01:15, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Tangentially, pursuant to my suggestion that the Georgia category be diffused into subcategories for major radio markets, I just wanted to note that I've now created "Radio stations in X" subcats for Albany, Athens, Augusta, Brunswick, Columbus, Macon and Valdosta. I also noticed that about half the radio stations in the existing Savannah cat were being double-filed in both Savannah and the Georgia parent. Bearcat (talk) 00:03, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Just what we need - more geographic categories that contain a small handful of stations. JPG-GR (talk) 08:25, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Do you really find undifferentiated state categories without subcategories for major markets to be more helpful? I don't. Bearcat (talk) 16:31, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I find "major markets" a vague term. For instance, I haven't heard of some of those Georgia cities which leads me to believe their markets aren't that big. I find one category of 200 items better than one with 100 items and 10 subcategories of 10 items each. That's just me, though. JPG-GR (talk) 16:33, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I'd also note that in the process of doing this, I caught more than a dozen stations that weren't filed in any Georgia-related categories at all, but only ownership or format categories — which means that even if the project does come to a consensus that the city categories should get merged back up to the state one, the number of unfiled stations I caught still constitutes a net benefit to the project. Bearcat (talk) 16:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
As well, I'd like to note that I tend to be concerned as much with category intersections as with categories themselves. For instance, radio stations in a particular city are subtopics of the city category just as much as they are of the state radio stations category — but if a dedicated "radio stations in city" subcategory doesn't exist, then the article either (a) ends up in both Category:Radio stations in Georgia (U.S. state) and Category:Athens, Georgia, which has the result of cluttering the city category unnecessarily, or (b) ends up only in Category:Radio stations in Georgia (U.S. state) and not in any city category at all, which means half of its context is missing. When it comes to radio categorization, I'm not concerned only with what's easiest for this project, but with finding the best balance between this project and the needs of other categories. Bearcat (talk) 16:43, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for category organization as it currently leaves a little to be desired. I came across a Category: Radio station lists by US city or something like that last night which was actually a pleasant surprise... even if it did show glaringly our inconsistency with their names. JPG-GR (talk) 16:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
No worries. I totally agree that Category:Radio stations in the United States by city could use a once-over for consistency of naming format among its subcategories. There's a similar issue with Category:Lists of media by city in the United States, but I'm going to put that up for a separate discussion because it's going to need crossposting to the television project as well. Bearcat (talk) 19:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox: Owner vs Licensee vs LMA

This issue comes up from time to time, since one of the issues I tend to spot and try to clean up is mistakes about the ownership of radio station. I'm not "in the biz", but think by now I have a pretty good idea how to delve into the FCC records.

The Infobox template doesn't seem to be to communicate clearly this information. Not knowing how templates work behind the scenes and not knowing the implications, I would not even consider doing anything without consensus. The existing template permits two data fields - Owner and Licensee. The output takes the Owner field and labels it the "Owner", then puts the licensee field (if present) in parenthesis below the "Owner". While this makes some sense for a situation like Clear Channel.... Clear Channel is the ultimate owner, but the license is being held in the name of an acquired company (AM/FM Licneses, Jacor,etc...), it is counter-intuitive for other kinds of situations. Kind of by definition, the "licensee" of the station is the "Owner". The sitatuion this doesn't address is LMA situations which clearly confuse a lot of people, especially in the general public.

My objective is that when I visit a page for a station, and the FCC licensee doesn't match the information in the infobox, it is clear to a visitor why that it is so. So a typical radio station listener would believe his favorite station is owned by "X", but when he gets here it says "Y", which is a company he has never heard of can figure it out.

Typical reasons for differences I've seen are 1) pending sales erroneously changed to the new owner prior to consummation of the sale 2) non-sale related LMAs where the station is being operated by one company but the license is owned by a different company and the editor doesn't understand what an LMA is and thinks the operator is the "owner" of the station 3) Station owners (or people editing the articles) glossing over subtle legalisms like the person who owns the stock of a corporation is not the owner of the station - the corporation is. If person "A" owns Corp 1 (which owns station AAA) and owns Corp 2 (which owns station BBB), it is wrong to say that Corp 1 is the owner of station BBB. If Person "A" is the sole owner of both corporations, it is basically accurate to say that Person "A" owns station "AAA" and "BBB", but if either corporation has a minority shareholder, that is not correct.

I also would like "owner" to be usable to pierce the corporate veil as far as public understanding. The FCC ownership reports (which are public record) and already linked to as a source require the licensee to disclose the actual owners of the interest in the station, not just the name of an LLC that holds the license. Being able to say that "Station ABC is owned 100% by an individual who has his investment in an LLC (for whatever reason) could be very useful information to people doing research on the station. There are stations with very curious owners who you would never think have an interest in the radio business. The current "Owner" item doesn't facilitate this. If I discover that Station BBB is licensed to XYZ, LLC, which is identified in the FCC reports as 100% owned by a local politician, I think that's useful information. I would like to be able to show it as Licensee (owner).

In any case, that's the objective and some of the issues.... WKHW happens to be the one I'm dealing with today. It is licensed to Great Scott, but has been a long term LMA to Bay Broadcasting, dating back to a defunct simulcast. I've reversed the two data items to make it look understandable, but am not comfortable with that as the solution, since Bay is not the licensee.StreamingRadioGuide (talk) 13:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

As you will no doubt have seen in your researches, the FCC is concerned about two distinct concepts in this field: the ownership of the license, and the control of the licensee. When a license is "assigned" (technically it cannot be bought or sold, although in normal English prose one would use those words), a form must be filed with the FCC requesting consent to the assignment. If the FCC consents, and the old licensee files a notice of consummation within the specified period, then the FCC will update its records to reflect the new licensee name. Any kind of legal person may be a licensee, provided he/she/it is domiciled in the U.S. (and, in the case of individuals, a U.S. citizen). Since individuals are very rarely licensees in their own right, most license assignments these days (identified in CDBS by the "BAL" file number prefix) are of the pro forma variety: changes in names or corporate structures that don't actually mean anything.
What the FCC is most concerned about is control. All of the owners, direct and indirect, of voting interest in a corporate licensee are, as a group, said to control the licensee. However, making every individual shareholder in a corporate broadcaster file a transfer of control ("BTC") application whenever they trade in the company's stock would be an undue burden on both licensees and the financial markets. So the FCC defines a threshold of "attributable ownership", and only attributable owners are required to be reflected in the biennial ownership reports ("BOA") filed with the Commission. (So, for example, Sumner Redstone "controls" CBS Radio East, Inc., the licensee of WBZ. He does this through his control of National Amusements, which owns a majority of the voting power in CBS Corporation, which ultimately owns all of the voting power in CBS Radio East, Inc.) The FCC must give prior consent to any action that results in majority voting control changing hands (except in unusual situations like bankruptcy trusteeship). If the control of a licensee ends up in a corporation with no shareholder having an attributable interest (e.g., GE) then that corporation is said to have control.
The obvious answer would be that the "owner" would be the controlling entity or entities (Robert Miles Bittner for WJTO, Sumner Redstone for WBZ, GE for WNBC), but this isn't always the most useful information. Normally we would say that CBS Corporation, not Sumner Redstone, is the "owner" of WBZ, since Redstone's voting control belies his minority economic interest in the company. Similarly, it makes more sense to say that NBC Telemundo "owns" WNBC, because that is the name under which that part of GE does business (and readers can always follow the link to find out more about the corporate structure). LMAs and JSAs make this even more confusing, since control does not change in such transactions, but as far as a lay listener/viewer can tell, the station is being operated by someone else.
So, I would make the following suggestion. The "licensee" should reflect the actual holder of the license, as reflected in FCC proceedings. The "owner" should be the best-recognized name by which the business in control of the station is known (if different from the licensee); if the owner is a partnership, and the existence or ownership of the partnership is otherwise notable, the major partners and their stakes should be identified. There should be another field for LMAs that is labeled "Managed by:" in the infobox. 121a0012 (talk) 03:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed content - TIML Radio (UK)


Hi there, I've created the following draft page User:Jonathanhopkins/Draft_TIML_Radio_(UK)_page and would like to add it to the main Wikipedia directory. Having followed the guidelines for the submission of new companies to Wikipedia Wikipedia:Business'_FAQ, I'm hoping that I can get some feedback from the Wikipedia community and my suggestion for the proposed new page is a valid one. Thanks in advance for your help. Jonathanhopkins (talk) 23:14, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

That looks fairly fine to me and is referenced, so it could be placed into article namespace. The only things I would do is:
  • I would just call the article TIML Radio. There is no need to disambiguate the title as from what I can see, they are only operating in the UK at present. If they expand beyond the UK, you can move the page to TIML Radio (UK) and make the TIML Radio page a disambiguation page;
  • Correct the error in the TIML Radio website address. It has a comma in the web address instead of a dot;
  • Add the article to categories regarding UK radio (ie. British Radio, Media companies of the United Kingdom and Radio broadcasting companies of the United Kingdom) but only do this when the article has been created in article namespace.
  • Add, expand and correct the Virgin Radio article.
Hope this helps --tgheretford (talk) 16:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mexico

Yo all...I've started working on subcategorizing Category:Radio stations in Mexico by state, and I've come across a couple of questions that I need some help with because I'm in no sense an expert on Mexican radio (aside from the Stan Ridgeway song, of course...), and can't read enough Spanish to research these myself:

  1. There's a subcategory, Category:Regional Mexican radio stations, which describes itself as a specific radio format pertaining to regional styles of Mexican music, but from what I can tell the category appears to be getting misused as a catchall for just about any station in Mexico that's "regional" in the sense of not being in Mexico City: some of the stations in the category have infoboxes that describe the station's format as news, sports or university/college radio, not regional Mexican music. Does anybody know enough about Mexican radio to sort this out?
  2. I've also come across a few stations where the state template that's located at the bottom of the article doesn't match the article's description of the station: XEAK-AM, for example, is described in the article as being in Baja California, but it has a Guanajuato template at the bottom. XEBC-AM says Baja California, but is templated as Jalisco. XERA-AM says it's in Coahuila, but is templated as Chiapas. XED-AM, XELO-AM and XERB-AM are similarly afflicted as well. I suspect these are probably cases of reassigned call signs, but again, I don't know enough about Mexican radio to simply assume that or to fix the articles.

Thanks for any help that anybody with some knowledge of Spanish can provide here. Bearcat (talk) 03:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Update: I've managed to get all six stations in item #2 deciphered for past vs. present call sign assignments, and hence sorted for state, although all of the articles are still quite poor in terms of actual detail on the stations in question, and I still need assistance with item #1. We are, for what it's worth, very weak on radio stations in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean in general, and definitely need to find ways to improve our coverage of these areas. Bearcat (talk) 18:23, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RFC

(cc: Television and Radio WikiProjects.) Due to the use of a variety of different title formats, Category:Lists of media by city needs a review to determine a consistent naming standard. I've initiated a discussion at Category talk:Lists of media by city around this. Bearcat (talk) 19:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Auxiliary Licenses

Are or can auxiliary licenses be listed? These are the Remote Pickup Units & Studio-Transmitter Links, etc.? I know of one page that has them, but the station is now defunct & another station in which they were deleted by an unregistered user.Stereorock (talk) 02:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Unless there is something that makes them specifically notable, I'd say "no" per WP:DIR. Mentioning that XETV uses a common carrier to get its signal across the border is one thing; no Wikipedia user is going to look up WPTZ in order to to find out that they are also the licensee of WHA855, WHA856, KEH93, and so on. (With my luck those will turn out to belong to WCAX instead; the point stands.) An example of a notable auxiliary station would be the one that Allan Weiner got a few decades back for whichever Maine AM he was involved with at the time, for which he got busted. (That saga is probably worth an article of its own.) 121a0012 (talk) 03:55, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Oh yeah- that was KPF941. He talks about it in his book. An interesting idea to say the least!Stereorock (talk) 11:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template question

There seems to be a bit of an edit war over this on some radio market templates, so I thought I should ask for other people's opinions: given the fact that television stations which broadcast on channel 6 can also be heard on 87.7 FM, should we be listing channel 6 stations on the radio templates? I personally don't think we should, but what do the rest of you think? Bearcat (talk) 15:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

There are at least a couple that are intentionally using this fact to transmit an audio program while only sending a slide or other minimal video programming. Those should be included. As to the rest, I would say no. - Dravecky (talk) 15:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
If they are listed as FM licensed in the FCC database, yes. If not, no. JPG-GR (talk) 18:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: contents of Template:USRadio3

Would anybody be against the deletion of the lists as outlined in Template:USRadio3? With the completion of the lists by state, I question the usefulness of these alphabetical lists, other than from a trivia perspective. On the same hand, don't want to fully nominate yet until (a) I gauge the opinion of everyone else here and (b) to prevent some cascade that would cause other useful lists (like the state lists) to be subject to deletion. Thanks everyone! JPG-GR (talk) 06:02, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

The national lists by call letters (and thus sortable by the other fields) are still useful for finding stations, especially if you don't know the specific state in question or only know most of the callsign. - Dravecky (talk) 10:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)