Jingle all the way to the top
I've noticed my daughter in the past month has started singing the station identification jingle for one of the radio stations we listen to frequently in the car. I think she knows this better than just about any song she might hear on the radio and she's 3.
This got me thinking where did this whole thing with station call letters start? And then why do they use jingles? Glad you asked.
Call letters started back in the early 1990s with wireless telegraphic signaling between ships at sea and stations on land. The stations adopted "call signs" to help identify each other. In 1912 each country was given certain prefix letters. The United States was given K, N and W. Later when commercial radio took off these prefixes were used as a way to identify each radio stations.
The next problem to solve as commercial advertisers became involved was how know which radio stations had the most listeners. They did this based on ratings through a survey. Listeners had to recall the call letters. As there became more and more call letters for radio stations it became harder to remember them. This is where station identification jingles came in to help aid listeners in remembering them. In 1947 in Dallas, Texas the first station id jingle was made for KLIF and the idea exploded from there.
full jingle history
This got me thinking where did this whole thing with station call letters start? And then why do they use jingles? Glad you asked.
Call letters started back in the early 1990s with wireless telegraphic signaling between ships at sea and stations on land. The stations adopted "call signs" to help identify each other. In 1912 each country was given certain prefix letters. The United States was given K, N and W. Later when commercial radio took off these prefixes were used as a way to identify each radio stations.
The next problem to solve as commercial advertisers became involved was how know which radio stations had the most listeners. They did this based on ratings through a survey. Listeners had to recall the call letters. As there became more and more call letters for radio stations it became harder to remember them. This is where station identification jingles came in to help aid listeners in remembering them. In 1947 in Dallas, Texas the first station id jingle was made for KLIF and the idea exploded from there.
full jingle history