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KAHM Stream
- Thread starter cc333
- Start date
Below in italics is what a lady in our Facebook group posted yesterday concerning KAHM. My comments follow...
Earlier today, I did call KAHM and the lady I spoke to at the station confirmed that it is now "free" because in her own words "radio is supposed to be free". The plan she outlined for the coming weeks is that there will be two KAHM's - 1. The original FM station that can be reached from the radio dial within vicinity of signal strength and reach. 2. There will be a new streaming KAHM labeled, at the time of the conversation, and called 'CALM EZ' which will be identical except there will be no news at the top of the hour nor weather forecasts presented. So, KAHM streaming is indeed now actually free.
Not sure why the station mgmt would want to air (and pay) music licensing for two broadcasts (one for just the FM and a separate one for the "stream"). I wouldn't be surprised if the FM is preparing to change formats and KAHM has added the separate stream ahead of time so that the station may continue as an internet-based radio station, as WKTZ-FM in Jacksonville did with Jones College Radio; the fact the name of the new stream has no mention of the KAHM call letters, but would be known merely as "Calm EZ" suggests such a move. Unfortunately, I don't see Chavez retaining the beautiful music format on KAHM after all the $ invested in purchasing the station, the cost of the transmitter move to get the signal into suburban Phoenix. My personal thinking is that Chavez will ultimately change 102.1 to a regional mexican format to pair (simulcast) with its FM translator in Phoenix on the adjacent 101.9 frequency.
Earlier today, I did call KAHM and the lady I spoke to at the station confirmed that it is now "free" because in her own words "radio is supposed to be free". The plan she outlined for the coming weeks is that there will be two KAHM's - 1. The original FM station that can be reached from the radio dial within vicinity of signal strength and reach. 2. There will be a new streaming KAHM labeled, at the time of the conversation, and called 'CALM EZ' which will be identical except there will be no news at the top of the hour nor weather forecasts presented. So, KAHM streaming is indeed now actually free.
Not sure why the station mgmt would want to air (and pay) music licensing for two broadcasts (one for just the FM and a separate one for the "stream"). I wouldn't be surprised if the FM is preparing to change formats and KAHM has added the separate stream ahead of time so that the station may continue as an internet-based radio station, as WKTZ-FM in Jacksonville did with Jones College Radio; the fact the name of the new stream has no mention of the KAHM call letters, but would be known merely as "Calm EZ" suggests such a move. Unfortunately, I don't see Chavez retaining the beautiful music format on KAHM after all the $ invested in purchasing the station, the cost of the transmitter move to get the signal into suburban Phoenix. My personal thinking is that Chavez will ultimately change 102.1 to a regional mexican format to pair (simulcast) with its FM translator in Phoenix on the adjacent 101.9 frequency.
The present KAHM format will at least live on in a stream. As if there aren't enough EL streams already (though I suppose the same could've been said of stations airing the format during its heyday back in the 60s and 70s; as far as my research indicates, there was at least one or two EL stations (sometimes three) in every major market and many smaller ones at one point).
c
It really shoudn't matter as to how many "EL streams" are out there or not (personally I feel there aren't enough). The reality is..for all intents and purposes, the beautiful music format is dead on AM and FM radio (I count only nine AM/FM stations in the US still offering the format).This format will only be able to survive via the internet.
Easy Listening is not the same as Beautiful Music.
Beautiful Music began as "good music" in the early 60's, with mostly instrumental pop versions of pop standards and light classical adaptations.
When we started to get a whole rash of instrumental covers of Top 40 hits around 1966 with the Hollyridge Strings and a bunch of other groups made up of Hollywood session musicians, we also got the evolution of "good music" into "Beautiful Music" including the inclusion of on "light pop" vocal in every 15 minute set.
Beautiful Music as such ran from the very later 60's to the mid-late 80's.
@DavidEduardo That's interesting!
Now that you mention it, "Easy Listening" is a relatively modern format that evolved out of Beautiful Music. Subsequently, my understanding is that easy listening continued to evolve, and split up to become, among other things, Soft AC and smooth jazz. Is this right?
Nevertheless, "Easy Listening" nowadays seems to be used as a catch-all term to describe basically any kind of light pop or instrumental cover of a top 40 hit or standard, which pretty much includes Beautiful Music/Good Music.
To that end, (the possibly soon to be former?) KAHM airs a format which is part BM, part oldies, part AC. It's an odd mix, but it works well enough I suppose, even though, strictly speaking, it isn't BM. Hence Easy Listening.
c
Now that you mention it, "Easy Listening" is a relatively modern format that evolved out of Beautiful Music. Subsequently, my understanding is that easy listening continued to evolve, and split up to become, among other things, Soft AC and smooth jazz. Is this right?
Nevertheless, "Easy Listening" nowadays seems to be used as a catch-all term to describe basically any kind of light pop or instrumental cover of a top 40 hit or standard, which pretty much includes Beautiful Music/Good Music.
To that end, (the possibly soon to be former?) KAHM airs a format which is part BM, part oldies, part AC. It's an odd mix, but it works well enough I suppose, even though, strictly speaking, it isn't BM. Hence Easy Listening.
c
I agree.
JIB On The Web is decent. Smooth Moods is good too, but what bothers me about both is, once again, the use of relatively low bitrate lossy compression (both are 128kbps MP3). What would be nice is a good quality, high bitrate stream that actually sounds good.
In their heyday, Beautiful Music/Good Music stations — especially the earliest ones from the early 60s, such as KABL from
Even a humble, self-hosted Icecast stream has the potential to sound far superior to anything those stations could do with the technology available to them back then, so why don't more of these modern "radio station" streams take better advantage of it? Laziness???
c
One of the easy listening stations is WHLC Highlands NC. It's not soft AC since half of its music is instrumentals, though someone in my Facebook group said they found an article that said it was.
To me, the pop instrumental format began being called "good music" in the latest 50's and early 60's. When hundreds and hundreds of FMs in larger markets had to create original programming, SRP and Bonneville (and about a dozen later on) came up with the more commercial "Beautiful Music" name. By then, there was plenty of more contemporary music such as covers of recent Top 40 hits, and a lot less Montovani and 101 Strings.
"Easy Listening" was more a positioning statement than an actual format name.
Soft AC is a recent derivative of mainstream AC, a result of AC becoming more uptempo and pop based.
Smooth Jazz, while it came about around the time Beautiful Music was dying, was predominantly an ethnic format and it did not work particularly well in markets with small Black and Hispanic populations. It originated in LA when one of the more free-form rockers was declared dead and Metromedia wanted to have an adult format to replace it. The creators of the format, Frank Cody and Owen Leach, had no relationship with Beautiful Music and were not looking for its replacement.
I don't think any of those terms are used by anyone except old radio geeks any more.
I listened a few times when we had a home in Press-kit and it was just a bunch of old syndicator tapes mashed together. And the tapes sounded like one of the lesser syndicators, as I heard none of the "custom music" that the big syndicators commissioned and with which I was very familiar.
I see.
The Easy Listening chart became the AC chart in 1979, so to me that means that AC is for all intents and purposes equivalent to Easy Listening, which includes BM, but more heavily focuses on, among other things, lite pop and soft rock, as opposed to the heavily instrumental and orchestral sounds of BM, based on what I'm reading so far. Is that correct?
Well, I'm not old, but I am somewhat of a radio geek, so I use those terms because they seem to make sense, especially in a historical context when referring to (mostly) defunct formats of the past.
And checking out I am. So far, WHLC sounds to me pretty much the closest to a traditional on-air BM station that I've heard so far (and with a bit more polish than KAHM, whose song playlist is somewhat less conventional for a traditional easy listening-like format). It feels like a relic of the past!
It's too bad San Francisco doesn't have a station like this anymore (obviously this is dead as a commercial format (as people have kept saying), but I could totally see it work as a donation-supported, non-commercial LPFM station, if only on a small level).
c
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We should remember that at one time, Beautiful Music was one of the most popular FM formats. Some markets had multiple Beautiful Music stations. In NYC, the two major stations, WRFM and WPAT, were both consistently in the top ten in the 1970s and into the 80s.
WPAT 930 AM and 93.1 FM (a convenient match of dial positions) were more instrumental. They started as only-instrumentals in the 1960s but started adding one vocal per quarter hour sweep in the 70s. The vocal would be soft and by a well-known artist, Sinatra, Perry Como, Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, etc. WPAT was largely automated but had live hosts who worked six hour shifts, doing news briefs or weather every half-hour but not announcing the songs and artists. It was owned by Park Communications.
WPAT got around FCC prohibitions by simulcasting morning and afternoon drive, eight hours on weekdays. The rest of the week, the two stations would "shadowcast." They would play the same music tapes and commercials but not at the same time. Each host would pre-record his news and weather briefs for the AM and deliver them live on the FM. Almost but not quite the same words. If you added up each week's hours, WPAT-AM-FM would simulcast the maximum hours permitted and shadowcast the rest. I'm sure most listeners didn't know.
WRFM 105.1 was a bit more uptempo in its music choices. It also had a vocal in each quarter hour. Its hosts also worked six hour shifts but they said a bit more in each break. They'd tell you a few songs and artists and would chat a bit more than WPAT. It was owned by Bonneville. By itself, WRFM had better ratings, usually in the top 5. But if you added WPAT-FM and WPAT's ratings together, they had more listeners.
Two other stations were beautiful or easy listening: WTFM 103.5 (now WKTU) and WVNJ-FM 100.3 (now Z100). Two others tried Beautiful/Easy Listening for brief times, WNBC-FM 97.1 (now Hot 97) and WPIX 101.9 (now WFAN-FM).
WPAT 930 AM and 93.1 FM (a convenient match of dial positions) were more instrumental. They started as only-instrumentals in the 1960s but started adding one vocal per quarter hour sweep in the 70s. The vocal would be soft and by a well-known artist, Sinatra, Perry Como, Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, etc. WPAT was largely automated but had live hosts who worked six hour shifts, doing news briefs or weather every half-hour but not announcing the songs and artists. It was owned by Park Communications.
WPAT got around FCC prohibitions by simulcasting morning and afternoon drive, eight hours on weekdays. The rest of the week, the two stations would "shadowcast." They would play the same music tapes and commercials but not at the same time. Each host would pre-record his news and weather briefs for the AM and deliver them live on the FM. Almost but not quite the same words. If you added up each week's hours, WPAT-AM-FM would simulcast the maximum hours permitted and shadowcast the rest. I'm sure most listeners didn't know.
WRFM 105.1 was a bit more uptempo in its music choices. It also had a vocal in each quarter hour. Its hosts also worked six hour shifts but they said a bit more in each break. They'd tell you a few songs and artists and would chat a bit more than WPAT. It was owned by Bonneville. By itself, WRFM had better ratings, usually in the top 5. But if you added WPAT-FM and WPAT's ratings together, they had more listeners.
Two other stations were beautiful or easy listening: WTFM 103.5 (now WKTU) and WVNJ-FM 100.3 (now Z100). Two others tried Beautiful/Easy Listening for brief times, WNBC-FM 97.1 (now Hot 97) and WPIX 101.9 (now WFAN-FM).
I presume that you mean Billboard. That's why, at an early AC station in 1972 we did not read that magazine. We played "Ben" and "The Morning After" and even "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road" but not anything that was MOR or Beautiful Music.
And no instrumentals, not crooners, no Big Bands, no Sinatra and Andy Williams.
Some early AC stations, like WGAR in Cleveland, were more Top 40 oldies populated, but most of us, like Bill Tanner at WJDX in Jackson, were Top 40 songs without the rock, most country crossovers and no harder r&b songs and with slower rotations and more gold.
That sounds like Meredith Broadcasting's WHEN Syracuse (infamous for the singing EBS test) around that time. In 1974 it was playing Eagles and Captain & Tennille and even the Spinners, but the crooners were over at sleepy WSYR. But, not being a radio person, I wasn't familiar with the new term "AC" and thought of both stations as MOR, one just a bit more modern than the other. Syracuse had a screaming AM Top 40 station at the time, WOLF, which shared little of its playlist with WHEN and nothing at all with WSYR.
Way back when (early 60's) WBFM in New York was owned, I believed, by Muzak. They had the station for SCA use but needed something to put on the main carrier. So they put the background music on the maon carrier and dropped in the occasional commercial. I found it great music to study by. No distractions.
Exactly. I was PD at WERC in Birmingham, and WAPI was the big MOR station and there was nearly no overlap in music. Same as you experienced in Syracuse.
We did not use the name "AC" then. We all were forms of MOR, but one was traditional and the other was contemporary.
I've been listening to this stream a lot lately, and it still sounds like it's essentially the same as the transmitter feed (i.e., it's still got the commercials and news, plus it still ID's itself as "K-A-H-M, 102.1 FM").
Not that I mind, it's just that it's at odds with what was said to have supposed to happened several months ago.
c
Not that I mind, it's just that it's at odds with what was said to have supposed to happened several months ago.
c
KAHM online is the same programming that originates over the FM signal. That will change at some point and be split. See my earlier comment dated 6/27/23 in this thread.
I was listening to the stream for a bit, and when I heard the TOH legal ID, am almost certain that it foretells the future of KAHM. Along with the primary 102.1 HD signal, they are also heard in 'Press-kit' on not one, but two other signals: K228DF 93.5 and K269EE 101.7. Looking at the coverage maps for both, 101.7 seems more superior compared to the directional signal of 93.5, although both put a solid signal over Press-kit proper. There is no reason why KAH.M needs 3 signals covering the same area, unless... the BM format will be retained on the translators, with Chavez putting KNAI on 102.1. This brings me to my final point on why this will be happening, The KAHM calls will most likely be dropped for KNAI-FM. With no place to park them elsewhere, they can be grabbed up by another broadcaster, hence the new name with no call letters attached.
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