[Jeffhs]

The stations must know what they are doing as far as their ID procedures go, otherwise they would have gotten into trouble with the FCC long ago. The stations in Cleveland have been identifying for some time simply with a video representation of their call signs and cities of license; the sound track is usually a promo for an upcoming show. The "MyTV" affiliate in Cleveland simply shows a stylized "My43" on the screen; I don't know about the audio as I haven't listened to TV commercials or station breaks in years, since I've had TVs with remotes. The "CW" affiliate in Cleveland shows the network's logo and the station's call sign (atop "The CW" network logo in large, slanting letters) in the lower right corner of the TV screen during programs and, of course, at the top of each hour, but again I don't know exactly how their audio ID goes. The PBS channel in Cleveland shows its callsign all the time in the lower right corner of the screen. Another PBS station on our cable service shows simply a large letter "W" superimposed over the numbers 45 and 49--again, the two channels this PBS station operates on (channel 45 is a translator).

Many people do refer to TV stations by their cable channels these days, but I have a friend in the Cleveland area who still calls the CBS television station in Cleveland by its call sign (years after it left channel 8 to go to 19), despite the fact that he and I have the same cable service (Time Warner) and the stations are on the same numbers in his and my area; that is, NBC is on channel 3, CBS is channel 4 (downconverted from 19), ABC is channel 5, MyTV is channel 6 (downconverted from 43), The CW is channel 9 (downconverted from 55) and so on.