Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Radio Stations/Archive 2023

Page move discussion at Talk:Virgin Radio (France)#Requested move 2 January 2023

There is a requested page move discussion at Talk:Virgin Radio (France)#Requested move 2 January 2023 that may be of interest to the members of this WikiProject. 2600:1700:9BF3:220:B9E1:5B8:C232:4F52 (talk) 02:44, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

RFC on Al-Bayan

Your participation in an RFC at Talk:Al-Bayan_(radio_station)#RFC:_Radio_Frequencies_of_Al-Bayan is welcome. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:46, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

WKEY-FM

An IP user, which has stated to be the owner of WKEY-FM, keeps trying to change the format listed to his station’s branding, and generally violating WP:OR, & WP:ADVERTISING. It seems he has some user on his side now, so I’m going to need help in this one to not overstep the 3RR. Thanks! Stereorock (talk) 02:58, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

• Stereorock, that "some user" is me, thank you very much. Chill out. I'm an admin, and I don't look kindly on users recruiting other users to help them in a childish edit war over "soft rock" vs. "yacht rock", when the f--ing source actually says "mellow rock" in the very title--so if you like I can cite you for OR as well. Drmies (talk) 03:04, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

@Drmies:: We use the formats as defined by Nielsen, or previously , Arbitron (so it is not OR), the ratings bureau, but this goes further than that (the format name they give it is Soft Adult Contemporary; R-I is just an industry news website), but also WP:ADVERTISING. He is constantly trying to promote his stations (the other is WECK), and the WECK page is full of WP:OR (every little change at the station is reported there & is unsourced). I have asked on more than 1 occasion for these pages to be protected to no avail! Wikipedia does not exist to promote WKEY-FM & WECK. Yes, I did come here asking for others to assist me because I didn’t get anywhere with asking for page protection, and I haven’t been the only person to revert his self-promotion! Others have done so as well, and I want to keep them abreast of the situation! Now, if he wants Yacht Rock to be listed as a format, he’ll have to get Nielsen to recognize it.

Additional: I retract my earlier statement about him getting you on his side because I read your comments to him about COI & his “lousy website” (which it is). Stereorock (talk) 03:30, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

@Stereorock The answer is simple. What does the reliable source say the format is? Go from there. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:51, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

@Sammi Brie Oddly enough, it’s listed as Oldies with Nielsen here: [1], so they haven’t been informed of a format change, which is the station’s responsibility to do so. This is for Winter 2023.Stereorock (talk) 09:32, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Stereorock, thanks for your comments here. You obviously know more about this matter than I do, but I'm approaching this from a practical angle. I really don't see how saying "Yacht rock" and putting the slogan up there is advertising. Many of those articles have slogans, and as far as I am concerned that's all very silly, but that's what it is, so let him have his. I have not seen the other articles, and didn't know that the IP editor was involved with them as well, but I'll have a look, and if you have diffs to share, please do so. I will prompt them about the COI, have no doubt. Drmies (talk) 15:27, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

You're talking about this range, I imagine. Drmies (talk) 15:35, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Liquid Metal (SiriusXM)

Why was the article for Liquid Metal redirected to List of Sirius XM Radio channels? The reasoning behind the action states that the station is not independently notable, yet many other Sirius XM stations have their own articles. SouthParkFan65 (talk) 02:04, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Warner Bros. Discovery New Zealand#Requested move 20 February 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Warner Bros. Discovery New Zealand#Requested move 20 February 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. From Bassie f (his talk page) 21:12, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:BBC Sussex#Requested move 3 April 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:BBC Sussex#Requested move 3 April 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 20:02, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:West Sound (Ayrshire)#Requested move 3 April 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:West Sound (Ayrshire)#Requested move 3 April 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. EpicPupper (talk) 15:09, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:31, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:SBS Radio#Requested move 7 April 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:SBS Radio#Requested move 7 April 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Yours sincerely, TechGeek105 (his talk page) 23:57, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Greatest Hits Radio

Per the RfC in 2021 on the subject, articles about British local radio stations which were relaunched as part of the Greatest Hits Radio network in 2020/21 should "end their scope prior to the GHR rollup" and serve as historical documentation of the local radio station in question prior to its rebrand. Work to fix some of the hasty edits around the time of the rebrand is ongoing (and almost complete).

A user, User:Socialist Distancing, who has a large number of edits on UK radio-related articles, has recently been going around changing these pages back to names under the Greatest Hits Radio hierarchy, as in this edit where The Revolution (radio station) was renamed in the body text to "Greatest Hits Radio Manchester & The North West (Oldham)". See also: Peak FM; Dream 100; Signal 107. This goes against the 2021 RfC and is generally messy - the user appears to be using a crude search-and-replace in some cases leading to descriptions of Greatest Hits Radio broadcasting local programming that it does not (but that the former local stations did) such as sports coverage.

The user almost never uses edit summaries and is not communicative - they never reply to talk page messages or polite requests from fellow editors regarding their editing behavior. Could other editors keep an eye out for this user's edits and revert where necessary to maintain the status quo regarding these Greatest Hits Radio articles? Flip Format (talk) 19:32, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Number of radio stations

Hello. Is Radio Locator (Theodric Technologies) considered a reliable source? I would like to use it in Minneapolis#Media to replace Nielsen. The Nielsen page is no longer accessible and using it in the Internet Archive results in an error. As a visitor, I don't know if the link which I found under Resources at WikiProject Radio is for convenience, or if it is a reliable reference. If it's not, could you suggest a better source? Thank you. -SusanLesch (talk) 19:39, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

UK radio navboxes

Just a quick thought regarding the UK radio navboxes that I've been updating lately. Currently, these are in a strange order - AM, then FM, then DAB. For several years (per RAJAR) DAB has been the most popular platform for radio listening in terms of listening hours, followed by FM, with AM almost unmeasurably small.

Should these navboxes reflect the reality of modern broadcasting, with DAB placed at the top of each navbox, then FM, then what's left on AM at the bottom? Flip Format (talk) 19:34, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Radio market template standards

I have recently done a fair amount of work on Template:Tyler-Longview Radio (specifically, bringing its content in line with the actual market of the same name). Before I continue my work improving other market templates, I wanted to attempt to get some discussion going about creating some standards around these boxes - how some things are named, how various cases are handled, etc. I am primarily concerned with US stuff, but consideration should certainly be made for other countries as well.

Questions on which I would like to find consensus include:

• How should the template be titled consistently, not in the page name but across the top of the box?
• Should further efforts be made toward a goal of one market = one template? (affects previous question)
  • My vote would be yes - I would like to see that happen.
• How should we represent multiple, non-overlapping stations in one market sharing the same frequency?
  • My solution to this was to add the licensed city name outside of the link tag after the frequency in parentheses, and if two stations are of the same class, I'd just repeat the frequency again, linked to the other station, and add the city name as before. However, I have noticed that other templates do it differently, such as: frequency (callsign1 - callsign2). I prefer the idea of using city names, because if you're already looking at a "by frequency" list, IMO you're probably more likely to care about where said frequency can be tuned into rather than what the call sign is.
• Would it be a good idea to consistently add city names to the NOAA stations, either 100% of the time, or only when there are 2 or more?

-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 19:41, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Replying and adding on...

• To the first question, my initial thought is it should match the Nielsen market name, as shown at List of United States radio markets. I'm assuming you're looking primarily at U.S. radio market templates, right? Or would you see these rolling out to similar templates like {{Toronto Radio}} or {{London radio}} too?
• The goal of one market = one template seems reasonable, mostly because I can't think of a case where it wouldn't be off the top of my head.
• Regarding multiple stations at a frequency, I understand the logic of including city names, but would probably lean towards the callsign instead because in my mind the dial position is more about which station is there than the city of license.
• Unsure about adding city names to the NOAA stations. It takes up relatively little space on the template, so there's room to do it without things looking more crowded.

Since you're opening questions about radio market templates, how should we handle digital radio? For the U.S., since we're really only talking about HD Radio at this point, would it be too crowded to blend digital radio with the (analog) AM/FM stations?

So, instead of two sections:

By FM frequency:

• • 87.7
  • 88.5
  • 89.3
  • 89.9
  • 90.1
  • 90.5
  • 90.9
  • ...

Digital radio by frequency & subchannel:

• • 88.5-1
  • 88.5-2
  • 89.3-1
  • 90.9-1
  • 90.9-2
  • ...

You'd have something like:

By FM frequency & digital subchannel:

• • 87.7
  • 88.5 (HD-1, HD-2)
  • 89.3 (HD-1)
  • 89.9
  • 90.1
  • 90.5 (HD-1, HD-2)
  • ...

— Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 20:37, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

• Yes, primarily US markets. I haven't yet looked into how it could apply elsewhere.
• There are currently some market templates that, for example, split up one real market on the basis of multiple MSAs. This was the case with the one I just worked on, where there was one for stations in Tyler and surrounding areas, and a separate one for a so-called Longview-Marshall "market". I combined the two and made the latter a redirect. Also, there is a template for Paris, TX, which is not in a proper radio market -- how should those situations be handled? I feel like making separate templates for every non-market city would be overkill, but it is an option.
• I can understand that and could really go either way. Input from anyone else on this point is welcomed.
• I saw at least one template already putting city names on NOAA stations. The ones I was working on combining only had one station on each template, without a city name, and I didn't add city names when combining them. It's true that we're not hurting for space so adding them wouldn't exactly cause issues, but at the same time I feel like standards should be based on some kind of reasoning and I just wonder if there is any solid reason for/against doing it, other than "it seems helpful/nice".

I actually haven't tackled anything related to digital/HD radio yet, but here are my off-the-cuff thoughts:

Given that digital subchannels are under the control of the licensee of the base frequency and cannot exist without such a licensee, the only information in question for a given frequency is (1) do any digital subchannels exist at all, and (2) how many are there. They don't go by different call signs; the only difference is programming. So it seems to me that this info would be most at home on an individual station's page and I don't see a need for it in the template as it will only clutter things up.

Thanks for chiming in!
-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 21:35, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Some notes from me...

• The reason call signs are used for frequencies with more than one station is because in some very large cities or with some LPFMs, including time-shared LPFMs, they are audible in parts of the same city. K241BQ and K241CS both reach parts of Phoenix and have transmitters in Phoenix. Listing the former as "Ft. McDowell" is a complete mismatch for its service area.
• I worry that in most cases HD subchannel listings would be clutter.
• There are some markets that are not rated but clearly share a set of stations that demand a navbox. One example is {{Nogales Radio}}, where I merged US and Mexican templates covering mostly the same area, and I'd like to keep it that way.

Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 07:24, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Firstly, putting your signature somewhere other than the end of your comment completely breaks the Reply button, which kinda sucks. In this case, it also makes it hard to tell where your comment ends and my reply begins. So in keeping with WP:SIG I've moved it to the end.

• Fair point on the call signs. Sounds to me like there's enough reasoning to make that a standard.
• Agreed about HD channels being clutter.
• Your point is exactly my point. I can totally see the value in a navbox for areas not officially designated as "markets" -- my thing is, I feel like we should have some standardized criteria to determine when a place deserves its own non-market navbox, and how much should be included / how big such an area should be. Or should it just be completely arbitrary?

— Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 20:28, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Not everything needs a navbox. Certainly fewer than five stations would be a non-starter. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 21:10, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

I also want to add that a user who has done a significant amount of work on these in the past has written an essay in userspace that I think would be a great starting point for what I'm looking for: User:DrChuck68/Radio_station_regional_navbox

— Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 20:35, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

So a few comments.

Firstly, I do think Tyler and Longview should be separate, as the cities are 40 miles apart, and Longview (and Marshall even moreso) have a fair number of stations exclusively serving that area. I think radio navbox template definitions should be based on metro areas and/or official market definitions in many cases, but also taking shared coverage (or lack thereof) into account. Some examples:

There are several examples of two markets that are covered by two templates which overlap much more than Tyler and Longview do, and in most cases, have many stations from both markets transmitting from the same sites (often at high altitudes) with full market coverage of both cities, or in the case of the last 2 examples, at least two out of the three markets mentioned. Examples include

• Mobile, AL and Pensacola, FL
• Savannah, GA and Hilton Head, SC
• Idaho Falls and Pocatello
• Colorado Springs and Pueblo
• Bridgeport and either New Haven or Stamford-Norwalk, CT (there is even a station in the Stamford template that transmits from downtown Bridgeport yet isn’t in the Bridgeport template)
• Finally, Harrisburg, Lancaster and York, PA

There are also examples of official markets being split into multiple navboxes (like Tyler and Longview are) for a number of reasons. Examples and justifications include:

• Santa Rosa and San Francisco are separate, as Santa Rosa has a full radio dial separate from SF’s and due to being 50+ miles from SF, many SF stations don’t cover much of the SR area clearly.
• Template:Nantucket Radio is separate from Template:Cape Cod Radio. While Nantucket is not part of the Cape Cod market, it is heavily tied to the Cape Cod area culturally and can receive many Cape stations, plus the Nantucket template contains a measly 4 stations, which is (in my opinion) not enough to justify a separate navbox
• Stroudsburg is separate from Scranton as Stroudsburg is separated from the remainder of the market by the Pocono Mountains and thus can’t receive most Scranton stations clearly
• North Conway is around 65 miles away from Concord, NH and, like with Stroudsburg, is also near a major mountain range that impacts reception of in-market stations. On the other hand, Concord is only 18 miles from Manchester, and many stations from Manchester come in slightly clearer in Concord than those in the Lakes Region.
• Newport is separate from Providence. While all Providence stations come in clearly in Newport, Newport also has around a dozen stations of its own that usually don’t cover Providence very well (making it a sort of unofficial embedded market)
• Finally, Lewiston-Auburn is separate from Portland, ME. These templates/areas do overlap quite a bit, but there are still enough stations from both templates that don’t clearly reach both cities that two separate templates are still justified. TomG2002 (talk) 13:25, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for adding your thoughts. So if I understand correctly, your ideal would be to go by official markets except in cases where they don't make sense based on coverage, such as two adjacent markets with a ton of overlap, or one market with a lot of non-overlapping signals. Is that about right?

I can definitely see how that makes sense for overlapping markets, but in the latter case like Tyler-Longview, I feel like we need to come up with a more solid way of defining the exact area our templates cover. I.e. is it just the MSA boundary? Or do we go by county lines? How do we decide what is sufficient separation for splitting a market up? Could there be standard rules or would it be determined on a market-by-market basis?

And furthermore, should Tyler stations that have decent coverage of Longview be included in the Longview template?

Also, from what you're saying, it sounds like the Nantucket and Cape Cod templates should be merged, since what you provided was kind of the opposite of the "justifications" you mentioned.

  — Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 14:34, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I think that stations with strong coverage of two metros should be on both templates. This has been an issue on some templates (particularly in the northeast, where markets are closer together), but I think that if a station actively targets more than one market and/or has a strong signal over both areas should be in both. In Tyler/Longview’s case, this would include 93.1 from Tyler and the two Longview stations on both templates (and possibly some others, I’m not too familiar with Texas’ markets). Other examples more local to me would include WOKQ (a Portsmouth market station that also targets Manchester and is #3 in their ratings), WCTK (a New Bedford, MA station that has its studio in Providence and is already in both templates) and WPST (a Trenton, NJ station that has its transmitter in the Philly market, covers the entire city of Philly, and has a promotions presence). More gray area instances would be something like many of the Hartford, CT and Springfield, MA, where the two markets have more overlap than most, and stations in both cities can be heard in their principle cities clearly, but not beyond that (ie: most Springfield stations don’t reach Hartford’s southern suburbs, and most Hartford stations don’t reach places like Northampton, MA). For this reason, and because they are considered separate by most station owners, I’d keep those markets separate except in a few cases (WMAS serves Springfield but is licensed to a Hartford-market town, for instance). This is different from the Harrisburg/Lancaster/York example, where many companies sell their stations regionwide or at least to 2 out of the 3 markets, or the Mobile/Pensacola example which is even more extreme (the majority of stations in both markets transmit from the same antenna farm on very tall towers which give them full market coverage, making the Mobile/Pensacola market distinction practically meaningless).

As for market definitions/what stations are on what templates, I’ve usually gone off a combination of metro area/MSA definitions, common coverage and what market the station considers themselves to be in. For instance, WXLO-FM has a Worcester, MA studio and is considered a Worcester market station, but also has a strong promotions presence and signal in Boston’s western/northern suburbs (to the point where it includes Boston in its legal ID and has boosters in the downtown area), so it is also in that market’s template. The station also covers Manchester NH, but as it hardly has any advertising up there, it isn’t on the Manch template. WMVX is technically considered by Nielsen to be a Portsmouth NH-market station, but that’s only because Nielsen’s definition of the market is drawn on county lines — in reality, the station’s marketing and signal favor the Merrimack Valley (whose largest city is Manchester, and hence is in the Manchester template). Legal IDs can also be a good determiner of this — if a station includes multiple markets in their legal ID, then they should probably be in multiple templates.TomG2002 (talk) 16:11, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

So today I've been going over some stuff in Template:DFW Radio and found a few interesting cases I wasn't sure about.

For instance: this template includes 1340 AM (KAND), which is based out of Corsicana. I personally wouldn't consider Corsicana part of the DFW metro, but their 0.5 mV/m daytime signal does cover Dallas -- and their 2.0 mV/m contour (plus marketing) covers Ennis and Waxahachie, which I would definitely include in the metro. So should it be included in this template based on weaker signal coverage reaching Dallas, or stronger coverage reaching Ennis/Waxahachie, or based on the marketing including Ennis/Waxahachie? Or should it be excluded since it's from Corsicana which I would consider as outside the metro?

A few other stations I would question on a similar basis:

• KVTT - Mineral Wells may or may not be considered as part of the metro, but the signal definitely covers the metro.
• KGAF - Gainesville is not within the official DFW market, but would one consider it part of the metro? I personally wouldn't, however I might include adjacent Grayson county (Van Alstyne / Sherman) in the metro, so... I dunno. The signal only kinda-sorta covers the metro.

— Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 17:12, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

I would group all of those with DFW, as there is no separate template for any of those adjacent areas (aside from Sherman/Denison). I’ve noticed that in a lot of cases where there are rural areas surrounding a metro area/MSA, those outlying stations are included on the template despite not covering/targeting the market. In some cases, like the templates for Jackson, TN, Kansas City or Wichita, these rural areas extend well outside the market boundaries, but like with the examples provided above in the DFW area, there may not be enough stations to justify a separate template for these stations. I would suggest possibly creating an “outlying areas” section on those templates to differentiate in-market stations that target the “home market” of the template from stations that cover other areas or are not in the market but are still on the template (this is something that some US templates are already doing, as well as most Canadian ones). There are other templates that could use this distinction as well. An especially extreme example would be Template:Northern and Downeast Maine Radio where there are two very distinct camps of stations (stations serving Presque Isle/Aroostook County and stations serving the coastal areas 100+ miles to the south), where two separate templates are justified. TomG2002 (talk) 19:10, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

The "outlying areas" idea isn't a bad one. However, your reply brings up another question in my mind: is it ideal or appropriate that all radio stations be included in at least one navbox? It sounds like that is what you think. (Or put another way, does an outlying station that doesn't really cover the nearest metro need to be included in the navbox for said metro as opposed to being in none at all?)

See also: User:DrChuck68/Radio_station_regional_navbox#Radio_station_placement

My opinion would be, if an outlying station's signal still covers a decent amount of the metro, it might be worth including, but otherwise not. For example, this would lead me to include KVTT in the DFW box, but not so sure about the other two. If this were to be the standard we'd go by, then we would have to decide how much coverage is enough. For example, we'd have to ask, is it enough that KAND covers Dallas in its 0.5 mV/m contour, or is that too weak of a signal to count?

  — Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 19:59, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Plenty Valley FM

Hi all, I'm not sure if I'm in the right place (but I'm sure someone could point me in the right direction), but I'm connected to this page Talk:Plenty Valley FM - Wikipedia wish is the Plenty Valley FM page and the page has been dormant for some time and has inaccurate information in it. I put in a consideration to WP:TNT the page so that I could arrange for someone to provide relevant references to inform and improve the page. I didn't set it up initially, but since Sept 2022 no one has responded to the request (as a WP newbie maybe I didn't request it correctly?) I'm aware of a local volunteer in the area who knows about us and had put together a great reference doc with notations etc to add to the page, but it wasn't published for some reason. I'd like to use it to send edit requests (given I currently have a COI). TIA for any assistance you can provide. Wrightceee1990 (talk) 07:41, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Editwarring over format

There's been an edit war at WHBQ-FM over whether the station's format should be more properly described as "hot adult contemporary" or "contemporary hit radio", which has gone on for long enough (and also became a redlinked-category problem because one of the edit-warrers somehow had the very, very wrong idea that the category for CHR stations would be at "Top 40" instead of "contemporary hit radio". And for added bonus, until this started the station was categorized as classic hits.

I've had to editprotect the page for one week to shut down the editwar and force it to a talk page discussion. Since I'm a Canadian public radio geek with very little current knowledge of US commercial radio these days, could somebody with more knowledge weigh in at Talk:WHBQ-FM? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 16:41, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm in the US, but I don't think whatever knowledge I have of US commercial radio informs me any better than you on this issue. I don't know how this could be settled without someone doing some OR. I did a tiny bit of Googling on the difference between the two and found that it is a rather fine line. — Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 04:49, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

I would go with whichever format is assigned to them by Nielsen Audio. Radio-online.com reports they were Classic Hits, but since WHBQ-FM is essentially the old WMC-FM (which was Hot AC), I’d go with that. Stereorock (talk) 21:22, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:KLUV#Requested move 28 June 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:KLUV#Requested move 28 June 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 12:21, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Is {{XMSR}} needed?

The last of the traffic/weather channels were removed from Sirius XM in March 2023 (SXM now has an Infotainment package). Is {{XMSR}} no longer needed, or can/should it be repurposed? -- DrChuck68 (talk) 23:12, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

R from radio repeater

Hi all, I created a redirect template (Template:R from radio repeater) for tagging redirects that point from the call sign of a repeater to the article for the station being repeated. I thought people in this WikiProject might be interested in using (or editing) the template, so I wanted to let everyone here know. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:03, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

It's a good idea, but the language should probably refer to broadcast translator, which is what's usually used (at least in the U.S.) for AM, FM and TV, not radio repeater, which is usually about two-way radio systems. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 16:40, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the correction! Radio technology isn't an area I'm very familiar with, so it's a big help to have someone more knowledgeable look over the information. I'll update the template documentation per your suggestions. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 13:43, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Great! I've added it to a few translator redirects, but there are a bunch in Special:WhatLinksHere/CSN_International_translators and Category:NPR member translators that it could be added to, too. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 14:16, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm an inveterate wikignome, particularly on this project, so I'd probably end up using this a lot. But what do you envision being the purpose of the maintenance category that this template is populating? Not a criticism – legitimately curious. Mlaffs (talk) 23:09, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

WMFN in Template:Chicago Radio

For those not in the know, WMFN was a station started in West Michigan that eventually moved its COL to Peotone, Illinois by a broadcaster who never had designs on actually serving Peotone, but the broader Chicago region at large. As seen by its coverage map, its signal is nearly non-existent inland south of Kankakee, but it blankets Chicago and Milwaukee pretty well. The station owner, Birach Broadcasting Corporation, is outside a couple stations, known for running ethnic formats from stations in the suburban areas of major cities and getting FCC approval to blast those signals into the main urban core.

This has come into issue because the station in technicality serves Will County, but carries the Black Information Network under a LMA with iHeartMedia Chicago. Their advertising in Chicago proper doesn't mention Peotone, and all of their own advertising carried on the station revolves around Chicago and south suburban businesses. If Peotone or Will County is mentioned on the station outside the station ID, it's about the theoretical third airport that's never come to be, or usually in derision because of a negative story about discrimination. Since the Main Studio Rule was dropped, WMFN and Birach don't have any commitments to Will County or Peotone and can do anything they want, and once they entered the LMA with iHeart, their only focus has been distributing the network, and marketing it to, Chicago. Their signal source is WVAZ's second HD Radio subchannel, a Chicago station itself. For all intents and purposes, the station is a Chicago station using its Peotone COL as a flag of convenience, and has been for over ten years (it also previously aired Chicago-focused ethnic formats since the COL move to Peotone). Any programming it had specifically regarding the south suburbs has long been dropped. The station has physical billboard advertising in the city of Chicago advertising that BIN is available on 640 AM.

Knowing all of this, I have tried to add the station to the Chicago radio template while keeping it in the Template:Joliet-Morris-Crete Radio because that's still a radio market of its own, but if its being reported, its actual reach in WillCo like its signal is negligible in the Nielsens but stronger in Chicago (if Birach or iHeart even bother with them). Because COLs don't really matter now post-MSR repeal, I've tried to explain my addition of it in this manner, but @Tdl1060 has continually removed it despite explanation each time, and now dropped WP:DISRUPT on me to chill any discussion on this any further.

I feel like I'm justified in adding WMFN to the Chicago radio template and since we don't use official Nielsen ratings DMAs per the 2007 OTRS report they filed against us (which did involve TV at the time, but now encompasses radio after the Arbitron purchase), we do not defer to specific markets, more so post-MSR repeal. I'd like a neutral third opinion on the matter; if it's determined I am in the wrong, no issue here. But I'm coming here as a realist that knows the station has always been meant to serve Chicago and the market it is in does not matter one bit, because the goal of radio is always to serve the most people, and here, iHeart would not enter an LMA to carry a network around Black news in the nation's third largest city, to somehow only serve Kankakee and a range of farm towns. Thank you. Nate • (chatter) 21:04, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

• Is it audible in Chicago on a regular basis? Is it not trying to serve some other market? Then it belongs. This one does. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 21:11, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

  In that case, the suburban navboxes for all metropolitan areas need to be merged, because all of those stations are serving the market of the main metro area. Otherwise, we will have endless navbox creep based on original research. "Joliet-Morris-Crete" is not technically a separate market, and no one has argued it belongs in the Kankakee navbox. Signal strength and billboard advertising and other marketing issues are not firm verifiable factors. I for one do live in suburban Chicago and have seen plenty of billboards for BIN on IL 171 (First Ave), but none of them mention it being on AM 640. Tdl1060 (talk) 02:59, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

• Two sources list the station at the LMA's start specifically stating it was 'Chicago's 640 AM', and a well-trusted source noted it was specifically moved to where it was to serve Chicago back to 2014. iHeart wouldn't launch a station that was moved into the market to completely exclude the main market where its signal covers and demographic lives or call it "BIN Monee"; WGBO-DT has never been called 'a Joliet station' despite its COL; it's Chicago's Univision station. Certainly not original research. Nate • (chatter) 03:19, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

WGBO-TV broadcasts from downtown Chicago and Joliet is part of the Chicago market. There is no separate navbox for suburban TV stations. Will County is part of the Chicago market, as is DuPage, Lake, Kane, Kendall, and McHenry. Every station in the "Joliet-Morris-Crete" navbox is in the Chicago market. The problem that is the source of this dispute is rooted in the fact that we have separate navboxes for suburban counties. Perhaps we shouldn't, but there is no reason for WMFN to be singled out, when plenty of other suburban stations serve Chicago that are only in suburban navboxes, including some that have far move coverage in Cook County than they do in the counties that they are included in the navboxes for. Either the existing clear criteria for inclusion is maintained (city of license and location of transmitter site), a new clear criteria is established that would not rely on original research, or suburban navboxes need to be abolished alltogether.--Tdl1060 (talk) 07:39, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Call Sign History

Copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Radio: I needed to add a station's previous call signs to an article and when I tried to find those the way I have in the past, I got an "access denied" message. Can someone tell me how to find former call signs now, and more importantly, can a bot update all the links to the former source?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:57, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

What database have you tried? - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:21, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

What I must have seen used and what I added to articles that need them was this.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:46, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

This will get you to this, which will lead to this. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:24, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, but that doesn't solve the problem. I can access the information for new stations (example), but what happens when someone wants to use the existing link to go to the site and doesn't know about this procedure?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 23:15, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

I think what you’re saying is there are an unknown number of links to the FCC database that are published in articles that are dead or no longer working. You might ask at Village Pump for possible solutions, but I think they will need the specific articles and the specific dead links you want help repairing. - LuckyLouie (talk) 00:54, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's possible to figure out all the articles. I thought maybe there would be a way to search for the first part of that URL and then somehow replace that. It's not simple because the URL hasn't changed, but getting there is the problem.16:22, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

I think a WP reference search for specific url prefixes does exist. I don't recall exactly how it works, but again, the Village Pump could probably help. Or perhaps @User:DrChuck68 could help. Good luck! BTW I was just poking around and found this: [[2]]. It appears to be a template to generate a link to callsign history PDF's contained in the FCC database. There are some other interesting templates in the "see also" section of that page. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:57, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. And to be clear, in my previous post, "getting there" refers to the list of former call signs, not to the articles that have the URLs that won't work.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:03, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

One more discovery: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Radio Stations. These might be the people that can help. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:27, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

• I've been trying to avoid using {{FCC letter}} because I wonder how much longer CDBS links like that will work. Any CDBS history card or imported letter is mirrored in LMS, but we don't have an equivalent template (I've been using {{Cite web}}). But that's not exactly what you're looking for. Vchimpanzee, what exactly wasn't loading? Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 20:19, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

• Hi, might I suggest REC's FCCData website? It's updated directly from the FCC (though they are having connection issues) and is basically all FCC data just easier to access. The callsign history is at the bottom left. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:02, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

What we need is a way to access the information that is already sourced, if someone has a reason to need to look it up.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 23:25, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

@Vchimpanzee Can you provide one of the non-working URLs and the article it's in? Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 00:07, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

http://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/call_hist.pl?Facility_id=4841&Callsign=WKIX-FM is in WKIX-FM.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:36, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

• It's worth noting that the available call sign history - both the FCC's own on CDBS and LMS, and REC's FCCData site as a result - is absolutely borked right now and has been for a while. Some histories on LMS have the dates of the changes, but show the exact same call sign at each date (rather than the actual historical ones). Some stations are updated in CDBS, while others there don't reflect changes that have happened in the last few months. It's completely mishegas. There may not actually be a form of the link right now that would give you the correct information, and certainly not consistently so. Doesn't solve the problem, but thought it should be factored in. Mlaffs (talk) 01:58, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

In case anyone is wondering, I was trying to list all the stations that had ever been WKIX and just happened to remember those letters anytime I saw an article in need of former call signs and I needed to see the URL.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:56, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Is Special:Linksearch useful here? Certes (talk) 22:19, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

While http://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/call_hist.pl?Facility_id=4841&Callsign=WKIX-FM leads to access denied, simply changing "http" to "https" creates a working link: https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/call_hist.pl?Facility_id=4841&Callsign=WKIX-FM. Is that the only issue with these links, or is there more to it? -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 23:45, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

It may be as simple enough as taking this to Wikipedia:Link rot/URL change requests if that's the issue. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 23:49, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Okay, that seems to be the problem.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:26, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

K-Country

K-Country, currently a redirect to Kananaskis Country, has been nominated at RfD (see Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 October 21#K-Country). When investigating that I found that it is a brand used by multiple US and 1 Canadian radio stations so I drafted a disambiguation page for them below the redirect at K-Country. This draft could use attention from someone familiar with the topic area. Thryduulf (talk) 00:04, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm wondering if it should only list current stations to use the format, @Thryduulf? The link to WVOK should go to WZRR, by the way, if you're going to use it—that information really belongs to that station. The articles related are inconsistent as to "K-Country" or "K-99 Country". Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 01:58, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

I would go with a disambig page and list the stations. WKMM, WOGK, WGJK, KKQQ, and KNUI all appear to use the "K-Country" branding. I can confirm WKMM does (I have family in the area of that station). - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:52, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Accent Radio Network being nominated for deletion

Accent Radio Network is being nominated for deletion. The network was part of a business empire for Daniel Chapter One, owned by Jim & Trish Feijo, who pled guilty on charges of selling unapproved cancer treatments. The link to the deletion page is on the article’s page, & if anyone wants to add their 2¢, or sources, this is the opportunity. Stereorock (talk) 03:24, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section § Listing large US cities by state in broadcasting article leads

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section § Listing large US cities by state in broadcasting article leads. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 03:56, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Radio-Locator accuracy issues

Moved from User talk:Sammi Brie § Radio-Locator

 – Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 19:02, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

I want to run something past you. As you know, Radio-Locator is used on all US radio station pages. The quality of the site has really gone downhill. For a couple months, the site was not being updated. It is again, but some weird edits have been added. WROU, an Alpha Media station, is listed as licensed to "Bryan a. King" (with the lower case "a"). All iHeart stations, like WBIG, show "Steven M. Greeley" as licensee. Then there are issues like WVSB (formerly WUBU) showing years-old information from the callsign's time on what is now WVXS. Basically the site is no longer the reliable source it once was.

My idea is we switch all of the Radio-Locator links to those from REC Networks. As you know, REC is a well-run, constantly updated website, with information parsed directly from the FCC daily. Canadian stations already use REC in their External Links section, so it is clearly a reliable source for those stations. It stands to reason that it would be for US stations as well.

I am not sure what the process would be for moving the links over (ie: discussion, etc), but I thought I'd throw it out there for consideration. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 16:24, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a problem. We can either do REC or we can abolish the templates entirely. We might have to abolish the ones for full-service AM and FM. The templates in question are {{AML}} (4511 transclusions), {{FML}} (9077), {{FMXL}} (2447), and {{LPL}} (982). Doing REC would require manual technical changes—pretty gigantic ones, considering that the station data external link templates call these. For instance, {{AML|WABC}} wouldn't exactly work because typing WABC into FCCdata's call sign box leads to a disambiguation which is resolved by facility ID internally. Since the station data templates also ask for unsuffixed call signs in all cases, this issue extends to the AM and FM ones. FMXL and LPL can be recycled to point to REC (there is no conflict with stations in other services). The other two probably have to be taken to TfD because of the input mismatch. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 19:02, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

@Sammi Brie: Yeah, that would be a problem. Is there anyway to tie the Facility ID field from the Infobox into a template? That way it wouldn't have to be a total manual update for AM/FM stations? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 19:51, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

No, there's no way to do that. However, if correctly set up (most radio stations are not), {{Infobox radio station}} will automatically insert a public file and LMS link. If the infobox has the facility ID in it, then all that needs to be done is to add | licensing_authority = [[Federal Communications Commission|FCC]] to the infobox. It'll even detect that for an LPFM it should not add a public file link. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 20:52, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Addition to above: I noticed we have an LMS template (Template:FCC-LMS-Facility). Is there anyway we can recycle this for REC? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 19:55, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Something I threw together in my sandbox. It's basically a REC version of Template:FCC-LMS-Facility, but without the 3rd option. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 20:10, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Reasonable and easy, though probably best to limit to the cases where having a straight FCC link generated is not feasible (edge cases and defunct stations). Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 20:53, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Just to add to the mix here, REC Networks is having a lot of problems of its own these days, particularly in cases where stations have changed call signs. Using Facility ID to call on it would probably work around that, but thought it was worth highlighting. The move to LMS has caused a lot of problems in the ecosystem, not least of them on the FCC's own sites. Mlaffs (talk) 00:29, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

@Sammi Brie: I'm open to anything, I just think REC is a better source (as an alternative to R-L), but not having either works too.

@Mlaffs: This is quite true, but they (REC) tend to correct those in a couple days time. I haven't saw many instances where incorrect information has remained after the callsigns were changed. You are right, though, LMS really messed up a LOT of things across many websites. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 01:58, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

The reason that AML and FML have to go to TfD is technical and relates to the input question. FMXL and LPL can be seamlessly switched to REC. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 02:07, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Sorry if I wasn't clear (Autism + Migraine), but I am in agreement with the AfD. That's why I threw that template together in my sandbox, as an alternative to AML/FML. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:43, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Here, I'll ask another question and save a lot of time. Would we want the REC link alongside the LMS and public file links? Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 03:49, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I would !vote Yes, but only because I find REC easier to use than LMS and the former CDBS public file links. (side note: I think the AMQ/FMQ links should be redirected to the LMS page...but that's a different discussion). - Neutralhomer • Talk • 04:08, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

@Neutralhomer The reason AMQ and FMQ can't be repointed is an input problem. I can't generate a URL to LMS from a call sign alone. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:19, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I thought LMS was searchable by callsign, only Facility ID. I'm going to leave this up to more qualified editors than myself. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 04:31, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Running an REC template out of the infobox is trivial if the facility ID is supplied. It's just that we'd have to agree to do it—and put the licensing authority info in every infobox where it should exist. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:36, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

LMS is easy enough to use and yields the most accurate results and is published by the licensing authority itself. In addition to the aforementioned problems that REC Networks has been having recently where stations have changed call signs, they have long had a problem with inaccurate listings for historic call sign changes and periods of silence. We should stop using Radio-Locator, but let's not replace it with another site that is prone to inaccuracies. Tdl1060 (talk) 05:30, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Additionally, as far as coverage maps are concerned, REC has at times generated less accurate maps, as they have at times failed to accurately represent rotation on directional FM patterns, particularly for translators, and at times failed to generate a directional pattern altogether. I have noticed a few times where Radio-Locator failed to generate directional patterns too, but less often than REC. Tdl1060 (talk) 05:36, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

The long-term solution is to get a facility ID and licensing authority call in every infobox. It might even be worth doing as a bot run somehow (AWB would be very tedious without bot approval). But this is an interim solution for the ones that can at least be pointed to another resource. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 06:09, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I think most US stations have facility ID, and I think a bot run would be the best solution. I did most if not all of the Chicago stations a while back, but yes it would be a long and tedious task without having a bot handling the task. Here is one instance where REC had a less accurate coverage map than Radio-Locator: (LMS)(FCC Data)(Radio Locator) and here is one instance where a CP has a very directional pattern, but REC does not display that in the coverage map at all. (FCC Data) Tdl1060 (talk) 19:51, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

A long and tedious task you say? Did someone call my name? 😀 Mlaffs (talk) 23:20, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Ran a petscan run of what should be every article on a current US radio station ([3]). Some work will be needed to trim out the non-AM/FM stations. The number of pages that this would need to run on approaches 13,000. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 02:26, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree to switch over to REC to replace R-L. If the radio equivalent to TVFool (mind’s blanking on me at the moment on what it’s called) would be better, I’m in favour of switching to that (or to include both in a template). Alex jirgens (talk) 04:20, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

TfD set up: Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2023_November_21. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:28, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Next Steps

Since the templates are officially deleted, what's our next steps in replacing them with something else? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:10, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to those involved in the above discussion: Sammi Brie, Mlaffs, Tdl1060, Alex jirgens. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:14, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

1230 KCUP Toledo OR becomes ESPN Radio

KCUP 1230 Toledo Oregon has changed formats to ESPN radio on August 2 2023 following a change of ownership. I've updated the KCUP page as well as the List of radio stations in Oregon and List of ESPN Radio affiliates.

If anyone knows more about the circumstances of the change of ownership please feel free to update the entry with more accurate info. Liron (talk) 03:15, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

@Lironl Threw some refs your way and cleaned up a bit. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:42, 30 December 2023 (UTC)