The classic sitcom “WKRP In Cincinnati” was on a lot of minds last week because of the legendary “Turkey Drop” episode, but there was a little wire story that caught my attention, too: a low-power TV station in Cincinnati applied for and has received FCC permission to change its call letters to WKRP.
LPTV was first legislated into existence by the FCC in 1982 as a way to allow local community organizations a way to have access to television broadcasting opportunities. Most television markets, big and small, were typically limited to 3-5 conventional stations — usually one for each of the three networks, a PBS station, and maybe one or two independent UHF stations — and the commercial nature of most television stations simply shut out any opportunity for local programming or for local organizations. LPTV was expected to develop into the same niche that low-power AM radio was occupying. Just as this was happening, though, the explosion of cable services was underway. As viewers stopped receiving over-the-air signals, the chance for LPTV stations to get seen all but vanished, and everybody turned their attention instead to public access channels on cable (sometimes also called PEG channels). Public access remans true to the original intent of LPTV, while those LPTV stations that have bravely soldiered on over the years have either come to resemble the independent UHF stations of old or have found a different niche as broadcasting native-language programming to immigrant communities. In Massachusetts, for example, there are six LPTV stations, four of which are Spanish-language stations. LPTV channels are also sometimes used as repeater stations to help extend a conventional station’s broadcast signal to areas that have reception problems. As recently as October of this year, the FCC was still considering imposing rules on cable operators to add LPTV channels to their basic tier services, but at the last minute the FCC dropped their proposals. Further limiting LPTV will be the digital conversion in February. As this law blog post notes, LPTV stations are not required to convert to digital transmission, and many of them can’t afford to anyway, but the digital converters that are on the market do not allow analog signals to pass through. So when the conversion is complete, the already miniscule audience for LPTV stations will likely be gone forever, and so will the stations.
WKRP-TV programs itself like the classic UHF stations of old did before they were sucked up by the “new” networks of the 1980s and 1990s (FOX, UPN, WB, HSN, PAX, and so on): re-runs of some classic shows, 3rd-tier syndicated series you’ve never heard of, a locally-produced Kung Fu movie show complete with wacky host, and informercials. They also stream their feed on their website, which means that there are probably a few of those streaming-TV aggregator sites that carry the channel among their offerings. The notoriety and publicity they’ve been able to generate by borrowing those well-known call letters might help them live on even as LPTV is likely to die off.
Oh, and if you’re wondering how they are able to use those call letters without getting a nasty C&D letter from MTM Productions, it’s because the FCC ruled that call signs cannot be copyrighted. Years ago, a radio station in Atlanta applied for the call sign “WKRP” and the FCC granted it to them; the MTM lawyers *did* come a-knocking at that time, at which point the FCC made their ruling. As radio and TV stations go out of business with a fair degree of regularity, their call signs are “recycled”, and there are even services that will help broadcasters get certain “vanity” signs. The Cincinnati station, which had been using the call letters WBQC, got lucky that WKRP went up for grabs. Just don’t expect to see Venus Flytrap or Dr. Johnny Fever on the air anytime soon.
