UnSource:List of broadcast and entertainment acronyms

See also List of backronyms

This list contains material from Wikipedia:List of backronyms, open-content under the GFDL. The original article has long since been deleted.

Audio and video

Not originally acronyms
Akai		Another Kaput Audio Invention
Bose		Buy Other Sound Equipment Better Order Something Else
Koss		K-tel's Obsolete Sound System Keep Ordering Spare Speakers
Lear		Lousy Eighttrack Audio Recordings (8-track cartridges, oddly, were invented by the brain behind LearJet as a first-and-only foray into car audio. Now obsolete.)
Sony		Seems Obsolete Next Year Soon – Only Not Yet Send Over Nippon Yen
Teac		Tapes Eaten And Chewed
Re-interpreted acronyms
ATSC	Advanced Television Systems Committee (North America/South Korea digital)	Always The Same Colour Analogue Televisions Seldom Compatible/Scrapped Completely A Terribly Steep Cliff Always Trying to Sell Converters
CAM	Conditional access module	Costly Add-on Module (a PCMCIA-like device to accept smart cards for pay-TV on DVB receivers)
DVB	Digital Video Broadcasting	Deficient Video Bandwidth (due to overuse of compression to put multiple channels on same carrier)
DVD	Digital video disc, Digital versatile disc	Defective Video Display
FTA	Free-to-air TV	Folks Talking Arabic, in reference to the large quantity of available free ethnic television
JBL		Junk, But Loud
JVC	Japan Victor Company	Junk, Very Cheap
LG	Lucky Goldstar	Life's Garbage, Lousy Garbage (actually "Lucky Goldstar" amounts to the same thing - but slogan is "Life's Good" to effectively obscure the original Goldstar name).
-LP and -CA (TV callsigns)	"Low Power" and "Class A"	"Lousy Picture/Lousy Programmes", "Crappy Audio" (too many commercial low-power TV operations are informercial-laden UHF broadcasts of abysmally-low quality)
NTSC	National Television System Committee (US, 1941/1953)	Never The Same Colour Never Twice the Same Colour No Two the Same Colour Never Tested Since Christ
PAL	Phase Alternate by Line (UK/Germany)	Peace/Perfect At Last Picture Always Lousy Pale And Lurid
RCA	Radio Corporation of America	Really Cheap Audio Rednecks Can't Agree Really Crappy Appliance
SCART	Syndicat des Constructeurs d'Appareils Radiorécepteurs et Téléviseurs	Strange Connector Americans Rarely Try
SECAM	Sequence de couleurs avec mémoire	System Essentially Contrary to the American Method Shows Every Colour All Murky Système Elégant Contre les AMéricains (Elegant System Against the Americans SECAM is the French colour analogue TV system)
SP/DIF	Sony/Philips Digital Interface	Strange Plug, Does It Fit?
VCR	Video cassette recorder (earlier VTR's used open-reel tapes)	Vile Crap, Regurgitated
VHS	Vertical Helical Scan	Virtually Hopeless Signal (originally stood for Vertical Helical Scan but believed by most people to mean Video Home System)

Broadcasters

Networks

ABC	Annoying Basically Crud Another Boring Channel Always Bull Crap Animal Broadcasting Company (short-lived slogan that appeared during Saturday morning cartoons) Anything But Colour
BBC	Blokes, Blimey Chaps Blair Broadcasting Corporation Brow-Beating Communists
CBC	Communist Broadcasting Corporation Canada's Best Commentators Canadian Broadcorping Castration
CKO	Completely Kaput. Off-air.
CBS	Complete BS Constantly Boring Shows
CCTV	Closed-Circuit Television Communism's Censored Television
CMT	Coal Miners' Television Canned Meat and Turnips
CNN	Completely Nasty Network Completely Neophyte Newscasters Continuously Negative News Chicken Noodle News Chicken Noodle Network Clinton News Network Commie/Communist News Network Comedy News Network Conservative News Network Contains No News.
CSPAN	Congressmen Stonewall Progress, Americans Notice.
CSTV	Cheap Shot Television
CTV	Canned Trivial Video
CW	Can't Wait (refers to the fact that some people want to see CW on the air ASAP) Cool, What is it? Champions and Winners Completely Worthless Could Work Continuous Wave (morse code)
FOX News	Foundation Of Xenophobes Needlessly Embellishing War Stories
ION	Infomercials' Own Network
LIN	Lesbians In Need
MSG	Must Serve God
MSNBC	More Stupid News Broadcast Constantly
MTV	More Turkey and Veal
NBC	Neutered By Cable Neutered By Censors Never Bull Crap Nothing But Cosby Naruto, Bo^7, and Caseclosed (sic)
NPR	National Propaganda Radio
PBS	Pretty Bland Stuff Precious Broadcasting System (National Lampoon parody of NY broadcaster WPBS-TV, but "donate $x million and win our studio buildings in downtown Manhattan" suggests a WNET 13 parody) Petroleum's British Subsidiary (because of sponsorship by oil companies and heavy use of British-originated programming)
RKO	Red Kills Orange Really Kinky Orgasms
[[wikipedia:Radio Telef%EDs %C9ireann|RTE]]	Really Terrible Entertainment
SBS	Sex Between Soccer (Australian multi-lingual public broadcaster which regularly screens soccer games, and international movies with frequent nudity and sex scenes) Soccer Broadcasting Station Stupid Brits Suck
TBN	The Blasphemy Network (moniker applied by Apologetics Index and others due to use of prosperity theology doctrine to solicit ever-increasing amounts of money with little or no accountability.)
UPN	Unlimited Programming for Negros UnderPaid Niggers Urban Programming Network UnPopular Network Urban People's Network Used Parts Network
WB	Wasted Bandwidth We're Black! Watched Barely What a Bore
WTN	Whining Television Network (Originally Womens Television Network)
YES	You Eat Shit?

Reinterpreted ITU radio callsigns

Station	Freq.	Market
CF-CK		Canada
CFNY	102.1MHz	Toronto	Canada's First New Youth Canada Fucks New York
CHUM	1050kHz, 104.5MHz	Toronto	Come Hand Us Money Can't Help Us Mature
K		Western US	(west of the Mississippi River)
KMIA	720kHz	Phoenix	Killed, Missing In Action (transmitters sabotaged in March 2006 using welding torches to cut four of seven towers, causing their collapse)
VO		Newfoundland	The Dominion of Newfoundland radio callsign prefix VO has typically been backronymed as "voice of". See Canada CF-CK for commercial stations originally on-air after 1949.
VOCM	590kHz	St. John's	"Voice Of Church (of) Mary" "Voice Of the Common Man" (if one were being critical) "Voice Of Complete Morons".
VOAR	1230kHz	St. John's	Voice of Adventist (Church) Radio Voice Of African Radio (Internet-based namesake)
VOWR	800kHz	St. John's	Voice of Wesley (United-Methodist Church) Radio
W		Eastern US	(east of the Mississippi River)
WBAP	820kHz	Dallas	We're Bad Ass People
WDAO	1210kHz	Dayton	White Days Are Over (earlier Black format)
WIP	610kHz	Philadelphia	We're In Pain Work In Progress
WKRP	n/a	Cincinnati	We Keep Radios Playing
WKTU	103.5	New York City	We Kill The Undead
WLS WLW	890kHz 700kHz	Chicago Cincinnati	World's Loudest Wireless (historic experimental 500kW AM broadcast, abandoned due to interference with other stations) World's Loudest Station was World's Largest Store (from Sears-owned radio) and Worlds Largest Wireless (respectively)
WLYK	102.7MHz	Cape Vincent	Will Let You Know
WNYC	93.9MHz 820kHz	NPR New York City	We Need Your Contributions
WPGC	1580kHz 95.5MHz	Washington	We're Poor, Got Cash?
WPTF	680kHz	Raleigh-Durham	We Pity The Fool
WSMB	1350kHz	Memphis	We're the Super Mario Bros.!
WTMI	n/a	Miami	Way Too Much Information (a one-time classical music station that kept their newscasts under one minute)
WYFQ	930kHz	BBN Charlotte	Watch it, You Fucking Queer!

Reinterpreted ITU television callsigns

CF-CK			Canada	(CB, nominally allocated to Chile, is also used by some CBC stations)
CBOT	4	CBC	Ottawa	CBC Ottawa TV	Can't Blame Others Totally
CFTO	9	CTV	Scarberia	Canada's Foremost, Toronto's Own	Can't Fool Torontonians Often Can't Feel Totally Objective
CHCH	11	ONtv	Hamilton	Hamilton's Channel	Can't Help Can't Hear Completely Hopeless Crap (from) Hamilton
CHOT	40	TVA	Hull	Hull-Ottawa TV	Completely Hideous Outaouais Télévision
CJOH	6, 8 13	CTV	Nepean	Ottawa-Hull	Complete Junk (from) Ottawa-Hull
CKND	9	Global	Winnipeg	KCND Pembina, a station this one replaced	Codename: Kids Next Door
CKWS	11	CBC	Kingston	Kingston Whig-Standard	Capturing Kingston's Worst Signal
K			Western US	(west of the Mississippi)
KABC	7	ABC	Los Angeles	American Broadcast Co.	Keeps Annoying Bored Californians
KCAL	9	Ind.	Los Angeles	California	Keep Checking Alliance Links
KCDN	35	DayStar	Kansas City	Kansas City Daystar Network	Keep Crapping Day and Night
KCWE	29	CW	Kansas City	Kansas City's World of Entertainment	Kansas CW Entertainment (callsign predates Columbia-Warner's "The CW" )
KDKA (WDTV)	2	CBS	Pittsburgh	Dumont Television Network	WDTV: We're Dead, Tell Victor
KEYE	42	CBS	Austin	EYE:the CBS logo	Keep Eating Your Eyeballs
KMAX	31	CW	Sacramento	MAX:maximum	Killer Movies Are X-rated (station started with an all-movie format)
KPBS	15	PBS	San Diego	Public Broadcasting Service	Kids, Please Be Silent!
W			Eastern US	(east of the Mississippi)
WABC	7	ABC	New York City	American Broadcast Company	We'll Always Be Crying/Cynical We're A Boring Channel
WAFB	9	CBS	Baton Rouge	American Family Broadcasting	We're Always Fucking Bush
WBFS	33	MyTV	Miami		We're Brain Food for Suckers Watch Badly Fading Signal We Broadcast Florida's Stupidity Winners? Bull-Fucking-Shit!
WBZ WJZ	4 13	CBS	Boston Baltimore	From WBZ radio and former WJZ radio in New Jersey	Who're the Bastards/Jerks at Zope? (Zope is the company that manages the websites for WBZ-TV and WJZ, along with their sister stations)
WCAU	10	NBC	Philadelphia	From sequential AM radio callsign	We're Crap And Unwatchable
WCAX	3	CBS	Burlington	College of Agriculture extension	We Clearly Are eXperimenting (In the first days of TV, stations did use W2X... or K2X... calls where X legally indicated experimental status; WCAX-TV is not of this series.)
WCBS	2	CBS	New York City	Columbia Broadcast System	We Can't Be Serious
WCCB	18	Fox	Charlotte	Charlotte's Cy Bahakel (founder and owner)	Where Communists Come to Breed
WCCO	4	CBS	Minneapolis	Washburn Crosby Co.	Watch Comedy Central On-air
WCIU	26	Ind./MeTV	Chicago	Chicago IL UHF	We Can't Inform U (refers to the lack of news)
WCNY	24	PBS	Syracuse	Central New York	We Constantly Need You
WDCA	20	MyTV	Washington	District of Columbia	We're Dick Clark's Ancestors
WDSU	6	NBC	New Orleans	DeSoto Hotel (former location)	We're Drowned, Still Underwater (one of the New Orleans transmitters flooded by Hurricane Katrina in 2005)
WECT	6.1	NBC	Wilmington	Eastern Carolina Television	We're Exceptionally Crappy Television
WETM	18	NBC	Elmira	Elmira Times Mirror (former owner)	We Expect Too Much
WGCL	46	CBS	Atlanta	We're Georgia's CLear TV (former slogan)	We're the Gulf Coast League!
WGN	9	CW	Chicago	Worlds Greatest Newspaper (from Tribune-owned WGN radio)	We Got Nudes
WGTW	48	TBN	Philadelphia	We're Great Television to Watch	We've Got To Wait
WHNS	21	Fox	Greenville NC	Harry 'N Stella (Pappas) (original owners)	We Have No Signal We Have No Soul
WITI	6	Fox	Milwaukee	Independent Television Inc. (original owner)	We're Idiots-Total Idiots
WJAR	10	NBC	Providence	From WJAR radio	We're Jerks All Right
WKBD	50	CW	Detroit	Kaiser Broadcasting Detroit	We Kill Bitches Dead
WKBW	7	ABC	Buffalo	From WKBW (Well Known Bible Witness) radio	We Know Buffalo's Watching Wimpy Kitty Baby Whiners (used by Jim Carrey's character in the movie Bruce Almighty after getting fired by the station)
WKYC	3	NBC	Cleveland	KYW Cleveland	We Know You Cleveland
WLAE	32	PBS	New Orleans	Louisiana Education	We Laugh At Everyone
WLBT	3	NBC	Jackson	Lamar Broadcast Television	We Lynch Black Trespassers (original station lost its license due to racist coverage of 1960's US civil rights movement and repeated censorship of network news broadcasts. A new owner under a new license later was to implement racial integration)
WLNY	55.1	Ind.	New York City	Long Island NY	We Love New York
WLS	7	ABC	Chicago	World's Largest Store (from Sears-owned radio)	We Love Sex
WLWC	28	CW	Providence		We Love Wooden Cars, We Love Watching Cable
WNAB	58	CW	Nashville	Nashville WB	We're Nearing Another Bankruptcy (past owner had gone bankrupt)
WNBC	4	NBC	New York City	National Broadcast Company	Watch News Because of Chuck (Chuck Scarborough, 11PM newscast anchor since 1974)
WNDY	23	MyTV	Indianapolis	NDY:Indy	We're Not Dead Yet!
WNED	17	PBS	Buffalo-Niagara	Western NY Education	We Need Every Dime We Need Every Dollar
WNEG	32	CBS	Toccoa-Athens	NorthEast Georgia	We're Not Even Good We're Never Ever Great
WNET	13	PBS	Newark-New York City	National Educational Television	Watching for Nine/Eleven Terrorists
WNYT	13	NBC	Albany	NY Television	We Need Your Time
WNYW	5	Fox	New York City	From WNEW radio calls	What's News, You'll Wonder
WOIO	19	CBS	Cleveland	Ohio	We're Overtly Idiotic, Okay?
WOWK	13	CBS	Charleston	Ohio, WV, Kentucky	Westwood One Wants Kash
WPBS-TV	16	PBS	New York	Watertown Public Broadcast Service	We'll Pledge-Break Soon, Thanks Viewers!
WPCW	19	CW	Jeanette-Pittsburgh	Pittsburgh CW	We Pittsburghers Can't Wait
WPIX	11	CW	New York	PIX: Picture newspaper	We Prefer channel IX
WPRI	12	CBS	Providence	Providence RI	We're Probably Really Ill
WRAL	5	CBS	North Carolina	Raleigh	We Really Are Lesbians
WRDC	28	MyTV	North Carolina	Raleigh-Durham-ChapelHill	We Really Don't Care (said by a disgruntled ex-employee after being fired by the new owners in 1992)
WSB	2	ABC	Atlanta	Welcome South, Brother (from AM station)	We Suck Balls
WSLS	10	NBC	Roanoke	Shenandoah Life Station	Watch Sex, Love & Secrets
WSOC	9	ABC	Charlotte	We Serve Our Community Sounds Of Charlotte (both from WSOC radio)	We Show Only Crime We Show Only Crap
WTBS	17	TBS	Atlanta	Turner Broadcast System	We Take Broads (or Bitches) to Sell Previous callsign WTCG: Watch This Channel Grow
WTEN	10	ABC	Albany	Ten (channel number)	We Televise Evil News
WTVJ	6	NBC	Miami		We're TV for Jerks/Jackasses We Televise Junk
WUPA	69	CW	Atlanta	UPN Atlanta	We're UnderPaid Atlantans
WUPL	54	MyTV	New Orleans	UPN Louisiana	We're UnderPaid Lesbians
WUPV	65	CW	Richmond	UPN Virginia	We're UnderPaid Virgins
WVIT	30	NBC	Hartford	Viacom Television	Watch Very Insipid Television
WWAY-TV	3.1	ABC	North Carolina	Way	We Want All of You - To Vomit
WWHB	48	Azteca	Palm Beach	William H. Brothers (former owner)	We Want Hot Bitches
WWJ	62	CBS	Detroit	From WWJ radio (was WGPR: Where God's Presence Radiates)	We Watch Junk We Want Jordan (of sports fans wanting Michael Jordan on their team) WGPR: We Got Pulled from Riyadh (the original ethnic programming was dropped once CBS purchased the station to replace Channel 2, now Fox)
WWLP	22	NBC	Springfield MA	William L. Putnam	Was Woefully Low-Powered (WWLP and former rebroadcaster WRLP-TV were named for station founder William and brother Roger Lowell Putnam. The region is mountainous, making UHF reception difficult. Hence WRLP "we're really low-powered" as full-power repeater, long-since decommissioned and relocated to Utah.)
WWMT	3	CBS	Kalamazoo	We're West Michigan Television	Why Watch My Television? We Want More Time
WWOR	9	CW	New York	From WOR radio	War of the Worlds Own Radio
WWNY	7	CBS	Carthage	Watertown New York	We're Whining Northern Yokels

Entertainment

Not originally acronyms
Beastie Boys	Boys Entering Anarchistic States Toward Internal Excellence Boys Entering Altered States To Induce Ecstasy
Big Daddy Kane	King Asiatic, Nobody's Equal.
Group W	Great! Really Old UnderPaid Workers!
KISS	Kids/Knights In Satan's Service
Rap	Retards Attempting Poetry; with the entrance of white rappers like Eminem, this can be retro-fitted to Cracker Retards Attempting Poetry.
Westwood One	We Especially Steal Television's Weaker, Older, and Out-of-style Deadbeats, and Open New Establishments
Wu-Tang Clan	Witty Unpredictable Talent And Natural Game We Usually Take All Niggers' Garments.
Re-interpreted acronyms
AC/DC	Anti-Christ/Devil's Children
ATHF	Americans Tend to Have Fun Always Talking to Harry and Florinda Assistance in Telemarketing, Hacking, and Fornicating
CSI	Can't See It Corpses Seldom Impress
CSI: NY	Can't See It? Not Yet.
DS	Die Satan! Dark Sun Dallas Stars Done with Sex Deal with Satan Dark Shadows Dark Skies
EPCOT	Every Person's Country, Only Tiny
FMA	Foreign Money Association For More Airtime Fuck Me in the Ass Florida, Mississippi and Alabama
MTM	Must Tell Mary
NFL	No Fun League
NTA	Not That Awful Not That American Never Totally Anticipated Now To Atlanta Never Tell All New/No Theaters Anticipated Not a Theater Available Nice Timing Asshole Not Today Asshole No Time at All Nice Try Asshole
NVE	(Australian Office for Film and Literature Classification, used for pornography) Not Very Entertaining.
SNL	So Not Lucky So Not in Love