The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Merge details into WGRB, the current operation on 1390 in Chicago. Plenty of sources here, but preferably it should be inserted in that chronological history. Nate•(chatter)05:16, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - WGRB never carried the WYNR calls, there is no license for WYNR in Chicago or anywhere for that matter (on the AM band), clearly a Part15 (non-notable) station. If references can be found that the station is in fact notable, then it should be kept, but at present there are no references showing the station is notable or even exists. Only licensed AM, FM (including Low Power FM), Shortwave, and Carrier Current radio stations enjoy the notablity standard, which allows for having a page on Wikipedia like WBBM or KDKA. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 06:17, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. This station was licensed, but it operated in the early 1960s. The article has references from reliable sources, also from the early 1960s. Once notable, always notable. - Eastmain (talk • contribs)11:36, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to WGRB. The article information is useful, but subtopics (like sections of station history) do not automatically inherit notability from their parent topic (the station's main article). Since the station's article is currently titled WGRB per Wikipedia naming conventions, that is where this text should go. --Closeapple (talk) 12:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to WGRB. I'd point out that NeutralHomer's observation (that WYNR could not be considered the same as WGRB) would be more compelling as an argument to keep this as a separate article, under the "notability does not expire" rule. Interestingly enough, there have been numerous changes of call letters over the years, WGES, WYNR, WNUS-AM, WGCI-AM and then to WGRB. In the same way that the Sacramento Kings had been the Rochester Royals, changes of name and location and ownership can raise the argument about whether two completely different entities are one-and-the-same. It's the license that gets handed off from one receiver to the next. Mandsford (talk) 16:29, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Apparently in the 1960's it was a federally licensed AM broadcast station. That gets notability granted to all federally licensed stations which originated some local programming, per past outcomes of AFDs. Notability is not temporary. There were also press article's about it, satisfying WP:N. There is no basis for a merge to a different station. Notability accrues to a STATION, meaning an ownership, onair talent, format, and call letters, not just to a frequency. One frequency in one city may, over the years, be the home of numerous stations. This is similar to how various men may be conductors of an orchestra, or bishops of a church, in a given city, or commanding generals of an army in different epochs. There is no rationality in merging them all together. Edison (talk) 04:09, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But orchestras, dioceses, and armies aren't considered new Wikipedia entities each time their conductors, bishops, and generals change. Likewise, stations normally aren't considered separate Wikipedia subjects each time their format and callsigns change; otherwise the station we are discussing now would have 4 or 5 separate articles, including ones for the WGES and WGCI (AM) eras, both of which lasted far longer than the WYNR run. Indeed, some other broadcasting establishments with particularly unstable histories could end up split into a dozen separately "automatically notable stations" by that standard. Look at WPMJ and think about whether 94.3 at Chillicothe, Illinois should be 1 Wikipedia article about a 30 year old station or up to 12 Wikipedia articles about 2-year stations that each might have a shot at WP:N. (Or worse, that are all declared automatically notable because they are "former" licensed stations.) --Closeapple (talk) 08:31, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as licensed radio stations, even defunct ones, are generally notable and this one appears to have been well-covered by reliable third-party sources as well. Given the short timeframe of this iteration of the station, I agree that a Merge to the WGRB article is both warranted and desirable. However, if the article is kept as a standalone, it should be Renamed to WYNR (defunct) or WYNR (Chicago). - Dravecky (talk) 12:50, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment (per my Merge above): WYNR is a still-existing station that already has a Wikipedia article — WGRB — and is not a "defunct" or "former" station deserving of its own article. A change in format does not cause a radio station Wikipedia topic to split into "former" and "current" entities with their own separate "automatic" notability on Wikipedia. Saying that WYNR is not WGRB, to get "automatic" notability for two articles instead of one, is pretty much the opposite of how 99% of radio stations are handled on Wikipedia. Even the mighty WCFL (AM) doesn't have its own separate article for its WCFL years. The chain of operation for this station from 1923 to today (as WGRB) is continuous; at no point did a station go defunct and leave an empty frequency for a new station to start in. The callsign chain is WTAY→WGES→WYNR→WNUS (AM)→WVON (AM)→WGCI (AM)→WGRB. Specifically:
The WVON era is mentioned in WVON (AM) because that (fairly historic) callsign was moved into 1390 around 1976 and back out around 1983. The rest of the history before and after WVON is in WGRB. Even if one considered the time before WVON and after WVON to be different stations, Gordon McLendon's WYNR was only 3 years in a 50+ year span of continuous operation (1923—1975) — for 40 years of that, it was WGES, yet nobody is pushing for a separate "WGES" article for Chicago. WYNR was not moved into place from another frequency or location; it was just a callsign change and format change for existing WGES. Likewise, WNUS (which lasted longer) was just a callsign change and format change for the same station 3 years later. --Closeapple (talk) 08:06, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.