Early Radio Automation: IGM System from 1968

[K.M. Richards]

The simple manual solution was to start random select reels at 5 AM by skipping a certain number of cuts so that there were different start points and, thus, different combinations of songs. I used a very simple table where each deck had a different "new reel start" for every day of the month so that you never heard the same start points of same combinations of songs together for about a year (start points times the number of reels in the category).

I used to do the same thing at an automated AC that I was responsible for, with the recurrent and gold reels, and we would rewind to the beginning when we came to the end. I also had specific times for reel changes which changed daily and were spaced so that only about 75% of the songs played on any given reel during its "shift".

Currents were only two reels, so we had a mandatory change at 2:00am, alternating which reel we started with and at a different cut number each morning. Then we just swapped reels when they got to the end.

I know that I got comments even on different versions of the same songs being repeated around the same time during the span of a few days. This was, in those 60's and 70's years, more of a foreground format than most people think today.

I can see that, given my earlier comments about many early BM stations evolving from "good music".

 

[Dick's History]

Wasn't worth the effort to be able to "select" from the 24 or 25 songs that could fit on the reel, in a format where it didn't matter what order the songs played in.

As I said over in the other thread about Beautiful Music just now, so much of that format's listening was in the background. You're worrying about something that wasn't an issue ... if even a couple of listeners per market would be able to predict song play order, I would have been surprised. (And accused them of not having lives.)

That would have been true of stations earning their livings by broadcasting background music to business clients. As they were not listening particularly. But often drove the people crazy working in those environments where they only used a few tapes either on premises or on a radio station. Otherwise most FMs had few listeners early on. Beautiful Music on AM was more outfront and in your face and reflected the then current middlebrow culture and was listening music the same as MOR was. Part of the genius of men such as Ted Niarhos and Marlin Taylor, Jerry Roberts, Ken Honeyman was in developing FM programming in the 1960s which could be both interesting and satisfying to listen to yet tasteful and inoffensive enough to be used as background if we so chose! They laid the foundations for the explosion of Beautiful listening on FM in the 1970s.

Thank you for your automation observations.

 

[Dick's History]

The simple manual solution was to start random select reels at 5 AM by skipping a certain number of cuts so that there were different start points and, thus, different combinations of songs. I used a very simple table where each deck had a different "new reel start" for every day of the month so that you never heard the same start points of same combinations of songs together for about a year (start points times the number of reels in the category).

I know that I got comments even on different versions of the same songs being repeated around the same time during the span of a few days. This was, in those 60's and 70's years, more of a foreground format than most people think today.

That is what I recall and have found through my study especially on AMs but sometimes on FM. Generally you can think of it as MOR without the personalities but emphasizing instrumentals instead of vocals. Whereas what we generally termed MOR in the 60s were stations emphasizing vocals and personalities rather than instrumentals. Though such stations mostly played plenty of instrumentals then. Some up to 50%! Beautiful Music MORs were 75% instrumentals , 25% vocals much choral vocals and sometimes on FM much less like 7% vocals (Marlin Taylor's WDVR in 1963 for instance) and i have heard of some with no vocals at all. I mean that were not primarily playing background music to business clients.

Interesting your approach to starting the music reels David. I was never a radio professional though I occasionally worked in radio besides as a musician so was unaware of most of this at the time.

 

[bigdonho]

I don't believe Schulke had any vocals. When we switched to Bonneville I was kinda of floored to hear vocals. The audience probably didn't even notice the difference.

 

[Dick's History]

I don't believe Schulke had any vocals. When we switched to Bonneville I was kinda of floored to hear vocals. The audience probably didn't even notice the difference.

Schulke's SRP had 11% vocals, mostly choral, to start with. In 1983 - 84 they went to 17% adding more solo vocals. Bonneville about 15% in the early 70s but often up to 36% by the mid 1980s.

 

[davideduardo]

I don't believe Schulke had any vocals. When we switched to Bonneville I was kinda of floored to hear vocals. The audience probably didn't even notice the difference.

Shulke had vocals, although apparently some that used individual reels did not run the vocals. But every one I heard had them. Usually the vocal was the third song in a quarter hour set.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Usually the vocal was the third song in a quarter hour set.

That was the norm for most BM syndicators.

In 1977-78, TM had three categories for their format, called CH ("change" ... the more medium/uptempo instrumentals), SL ("slush" ... the slower orchestrations) and V (vocals).

The standard quarter-hour was CH-SL-V-SL-CH, with the second SL being the song that was dropped for time correction ahead of the hour and half hour.

 

[davideduardo]

That was the norm for most BM syndicators.

In 1977-78, TM had three categories for their format, called CH ("change" ... the more medium/uptempo instrumentals), SL ("slush" ... the slower orchestrations) and V (vocals).

The standard quarter-hour was CH-SL-V-SL-CH, with the second SL being the song that was dropped for time correction ahead of the hour and half hour.

We were all different. I had a "bright" and "slow" category always in use. And a vocal one. There were three dayparted music categories that were brighter, medium and softer that played in the morning, daytime and nights only.

 

[K.M. Richards]

We were all different. I had a "bright" and "slow" category always in use. And a vocal one. There were three dayparted music categories that were brighter, medium and softer that played in the morning, daytime and nights only.

I'm not going to quibble about the details of each syndicator's version of the format. I am just agreeing with your earlier statement that vocals tended to be the third song in a set, regardless of whose version.