A note of congratulations: On February 6th “Bill Hower’s Music Box” begins its 9th year on 89.3 FM WRDV, a volunteer-staffed community station in Hatboro, Pa. serving the northern suburbs of Philadelphia (and everywhere else streaming on wrdv.org). The show (Fridays 10 pm – 2 am eastern) is four hours of traditional ‘beautiful music’ – all instrumentals except for a few of those soft choral vocals especially recorded for beautiful music radio. (My favorite of those sing-song vocals is “My Sweet Lord” by the Percy Faith Orchestra & Chorus including the repeated ‘Hare Krishna’ refrain at the end LOL!) The host has a good collection of beautiful music recordings, even some rare Beatles songbook remakes. On a pledge break Hower said he tries not to repeat songs within a year. The station runs block programming – big band and traditional standards weekdays, doo wop & r&b oldies weekends, and a variety of music evenings.
The Philadelphia area was a big market for beautiful music in the 1960’s & 1970’s: WDVR/WEAZ, WPBS, WQAL/WWSH, plus stations that could be picked up from Wilmington, Allentown, Easton, Atlantic City, and was even tried for a time on two suburban AM daytimers competing with these FM signals. The last station that tried the format was a two year attempted revival of the old WWSH name on WEAZ “Wish 560 AM’ in the early ‘90s. So the format had a long history here, with many ‘old timers’ who remember the format and appreciate this ‘revival’ show.
Has anyone else heard a true ‘beautiful music’ program on a terrestrial station that block-programs or has a regular format different from this music, other than some internet-only shows such as ones found on Live 365? This is the only such show I know of, even though beautiful music was the highest-rated format in many markets for many years!
The Philadelphia area was a big market for beautiful music in the 1960’s & 1970’s: WDVR/WEAZ, WPBS, WQAL/WWSH, plus stations that could be picked up from Wilmington, Allentown, Easton, Atlantic City, and was even tried for a time on two suburban AM daytimers competing with these FM signals. The last station that tried the format was a two year attempted revival of the old WWSH name on WEAZ “Wish 560 AM’ in the early ‘90s. So the format had a long history here, with many ‘old timers’ who remember the format and appreciate this ‘revival’ show.
Has anyone else heard a true ‘beautiful music’ program on a terrestrial station that block-programs or has a regular format different from this music, other than some internet-only shows such as ones found on Live 365? This is the only such show I know of, even though beautiful music was the highest-rated format in many markets for many years!