In the age of the internet, having a unique branding is more important than ever. With smart speakers, it’s easy enough to get two stations confused, and you may get a station you don’t want. There are numerous examples of this that I can think of when my friend who has a smart speaker and I have tried pulling up stations, and a few well documented cases of brand confusion.
The most well known example of brand confusion happened about 15 years ago, and I would imagine would be even more confusing today with smart speakers if the two stations still shared a common branding. It was well documented that listeners of Philadelphia’s WBEB, then known as B101, would get confused with WBWB in Providence, also using the name B101. WBEB is now B101.1 and WBWB is now Big 101.5, but that was one of the first of many examples of this kind of confusion. Before 92.3 in New York went to a simulcast of WINS, it was using the name Alt 92.3, as was WZRH in New Orleans, which still uses that name. In order to hear New Orleans, you had to specify the station to be played from iHeart Radio.
There are many, many more examples I could give, but for now I’ll give two more. There was a public radio network in California that rebranded as KVPR a couple of years ago to avoid confusion with Vermont Public Radio, because listeners were confusing the two and sending donations meant for California to Vermont. Lastly, there are three stations using the name Z100. The original and most well known is in New York, but it has a slightly younger sister in my own market, Portland. There is a third Z100, classic rock KZOQ in Missoula. So, if you want New York, you’re probably in good shape, but if you want any of the other stations, you would have to say something very specific. I’m not sure what to suggest for Missoula, perhaps rebrand with the station’s call letters, as it seems they were clearly inspired by Seattle’s KZOK. In Portland, the KKRZ calls stand for rose, as in Portland’s nickname as the Rose City, and the station was known as the Rose for a brief time in the early 80s.
These are just a few examples of stations that have been, or very easily could be confused with, other stations. When radio stations only were able to be heard in their local communities, this wouldn’t have been as big of an issue, but in the age of streaming, the Family Life skill you download on your smart speaker could be the one for the arrizona-based network when the one you actually wanted was the very similarly formatted network serving upstate New York and adjacent areas of Pennsylvania.
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