Madman Muntz and TV

[Mark Mandel]

Ben Zimmer wrote:
>WCBS-TV has had those call letters since Nov. 1, 1946, according to
>Wikipedia. I'd imagine that and other similar station names had a big
>influence on the use of "TV".

And Dave Wilton <dave at wilton.net> wrote:
> Wikipedia has WBKB-TV in Chicago adopted those call letters on 6 September
> 1946, a little bit earlier.

Call letters are assigned by the FCC, and there can be AM, FM, and
television stations with the same call letters in the same market. The
suffix is very helpful in distinguishing these media for publicity and
publication (see cites below), but I don't believe it's an official
part of the call letters. Unless the "TV" part of the name is
explicitly attested, I wouldn't call either of those an antedate.


http://www.economicexpert.com/a/WNBC.html
WNBC may mean the following broadcast stations in the city of New York:
    * WNBC-TV 4
    * WNBC AM 660, now WFAN
    * WNBC-FM 97.1, now WQHT-FM

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E6D91239F932A35753C1A963948260
 Disk Jockey Dismissed At Radio WNBC-AM
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 1, 1985
The disk jockey Howard Stern was dismissed yesterday from his job with
WNBC-AM due to ''conceptual differences'' with the station, the
president of the network's radio division said.

--
Mark Mandel

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