The Legal ID

This was drummed into me when I was getting into radio: "You must do a top of the hour ID. You must do it legally, exactly correctly, in the right order. It must be between 5 minutes before the hour and five minutes after the hour." There's not a broadcaster alive that doesn't know this. That's why you never hear any stories about radio stations getting in trouble for not following this rule, until now. From Tom Taylor's NOW newsletter...



L.A.’s KBIG missed a station ID – and the FCC caught it. You seldom see a Notice of Violation for a missing top of the hour ID – and you very rarely see that problem in the #2 market. But the Commission says that “On January 23, in response to a complaint, an agent from the Los Angeles office monitored KBIG (104.3)” and found the broadcast “failed to identify the station properly.” So this is a good time to review the Legal ID rule. To wit – “Official station identification shall consist of the station’s call letters followed by the community of license or communities specified in its license as the station’s location.” In the case of highly-rated hot AC KBIG, it has 20 days to explain what happened, when the FCC agent merely heard “104.3” at the top of the hour. This is a Notice of Violation – not a fine (at least not yet). One possibility - KBIG ran its legal ID before or after the top of the hour, while the agent was listening close to :00.

Don't tell me there are no rules. The rules may be a little arcane, but there are rules.