[BC] Legal ID's and accurate information

[Douglas B. Pritchett]

Caution: long winded rambles from an old coot:

Barry, while I understand your point emergency situations, may I point 
out that there really are 2 issues here. One is the ID issue, the other 
is that the broadcaster be complete and accurate with the information 
they air during an emergency or critical situation. "a big pile up at 
mile marker 35" tells me nothing. "A big pile up in the northbound lanes 
of I-25 at mile marker 35 just north of Wilsonville" is better.
Now, the ID question. Much of what we do today finds it's genesis in the 
early days of medium. Station D's were required to identify the station 
to the authorities in case of interference and/or bad operating 
practices. D's also helped an audience in it's infancy find and identify 
what station carried Little Orphan Annie. Today, it's different. While I 
understand wanting to punish the scofflaws that can't follow simple 
parameters of station identification, I offer that the system of 
identifying stations these days in antiquated and wholly unnecessary. 
First of all, city of license means nothing. Stations serve areas of 
listeners. Because a station is licensed to Patterson NJ, does that mean 
that people in NYC can't or shouldn't listen to it? I believe stations 
should identify by their call letters/Abritron positioner and the area 
they serve. As to when they do? Once an hour. If they wanna bury it in 
stopset, fine. The average listener does not care. And with all this new 
digital technology we have, displaying the ID on an lcd screen along 
with the song title, artist, weather forecast and disc jockey's inseam 
measurements should be no trouble.

-- 
Douglas B. Pritchett
Fort Wayne, IN
WBZQ1300 at verizon.net