"Easy Listening WTFM" Aircheck, 1985

[Sammy Reed]

I have posted an audio-cassette recording of WTFM when it was easy-listening, from late-September or early-October 1985 - about 4 months before it switched to an adult-contemporary format that mixed in some rock oldies.
http://strangebiz.blogspot.com/2016/10/easy-listening-wtfm-1985.html

 

[b-turner]

Wow a nice listen indeed. Definitely a low commercial load!

 

[RMarino]

Thanks for sharing this. This is a great quality classic aircheck! It reminds me how Knoxville had a similar station until the end of 2006 on EZ 88.3 WOEZ. I wish they were still around.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I liked every other song, which is an improvement over most stations today.

 

[oldiesgirl]

I have just now downloaded it, and I like what I hear so far. I also really appreciate how it appears to be unscoped. Scoped airchecks are a pet peeve because I like hearing the radio station as it actually sounded.

 

[Sammy Reed]

Welll, there seems to be a couple of moments on the tape where someone cut off commercial breaks.

 

[b-turner]

I'm not so sure commercials were deleted. I recall some smaller cities with Beautiful Music stations didn't come close to selling out, frequently having one or two commercials an hour. In those cases you got a liner and back to music. I can't say this is the case but I recall just hearing a liner when there were no commercials for a certain break.

 

[CTListener]

I have just now downloaded it, and I like what I hear so far. I also really appreciate how it appears to be unscoped. Scoped airchecks are a pet peeve because I like hearing the radio station as it actually sounded.

But unscoped airchecks are more likely to be sniffed out by the royalty police and land their posters in deep fine trouble.

 

[davideduardo]

I'm not so sure commercials were deleted. I recall some smaller cities with Beautiful Music stations didn't come close to selling out, frequently having one or two commercials an hour. In those cases you got a liner and back to music. I can't say this is the case but I recall just hearing a liner when there were no commercials for a certain break.

Generally, the stations in syndicated Beautiful Music formats would run two units every 15 minutes, with a maximum of 8 minutes an hour of spots. In some cases, the limit was even lower. I ran WSRA in San Juan from 1975 to 1980 with the FM 100 Plan and did two 30's each 15 minutes, or 4 total hourly minutes. My first FM ran one 20" spot every 10 minutes, for a total of 2' per hour... and it was immensely profitable.

So few commercials was not necessarily a sign of low sales.

 

[b-turner]

That is true. Few spots is not a sign of low sales in each circumstance. Some stations had a policy of very low commercial loads as David described.

I knew of a few stations where that was a case. In Sherman/Denison, Texas, the AM got almost all the money and the automated top notch beautiful music FM sister had barely two units an hour on weekdays and perhaps one an hour at other times. I recall in Llano, Texas, the first station in this small town was beautiful music (a strange choice for a ranching community) and if they had one spot an hour it was on weekdays 6am to 6pm. This was one of those stations that did 3 newscasts a day and only weather at the top of the hour, so if you liked 60 minute music hours, it was a good listen. They arrived on the scene around 1980. KBUX, Quartzsite, Arizona, when the Burdett's had the station, it was primarily beautiful music with some lite pop hits tossed in. Outside the winter visitor months when they had 10-15 advertisers, they were commercial free. All their billing came in a few months every year. They didn't do news or weather either, so all you got was a quick liner every 15 minutes and wall to wall music. I don't think they ever did more than break even in some years. You can Google them. They ran from a home in Quartzsite.