The Beautiful Music Format - Ok in the 1960s but not today

[BruceS8852]

Beautiful music is not heard on radio because it attracts listeners over 50 who are do not appeal to advertisters. Why was that format viable in the 1960s when as today it appeals to older people. I remember at one time the New York/Northern Jersey market had 4 such stations at WPAT, WVNJ-FM, WTFM, and WRFM. Any thoughts?

Thanks

Bruce

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Those who are over 50 today and like Beautiful Music used to be way under 50 and they liked Beautiful Music when they were younger.

Did you know that people actually used to listen to Frank Sinatra and Perry Como and Bing Crosby. Did you know that people actually used to go hear orchestras like Benny Goodman and Glen Miller and of course later on Stan Kenton.

That's the traditional logic we express about radio. That music is only enjoyed by people who are now old and are not useful for advertising target practice.

Not so traditional logic:

Old people were also listening back then but we didn't have as much audience study material available to prove that.

Beautiful Music survived even after the dirty little secret of demographics leaked out because the advertising was often purchased by entrepreneurs who didn't have ad agencies to tell them better. They owned jewelry stores and florist shops and Cadillac dealerships and they were so backwards that when people came in and said: "Where is that flower arrangement they talked about on the radio last night?" these shop owners were so backward that they thought that meant the advertising was working.

Some shop owners had an even stronger reason to buy Beautiful Music: Their wife told them to!

O.K. Sarcasm mode off:

It is rather widely accepted that we just plain have too many radio stations in most markets today. What I don't understand is why we don't have more specialty programming. With today's automation operating costs can be kept low. Why don't more markets have some splinter operations? Lawrence Welk and other accordion players? Cowboy music. (No, not Nashville country. Cowboy music.) Beautiful Music. German language news and music.

People subscribe to XM-Sirius to get good music. People pay membership to NPR stations to get good music. But broadcasters have convinced themselves that no one will listen to Beautiful Music if it comes from a land based transmitter.

 

[davideduardo]

Beautiful music is not heard on radio because it attracts listeners over 50 who are do not appeal to advertisters. Why was that format viable in the 1960s when as today it appeals to older people. I remember at one time the New York/Northern Jersey market had 4 such stations at WPAT, WVNJ-FM, WTFM, and WRFM. Any thoughts?

In the 70's, these formats were mostly FM, and did hugely in 25-54. The music base included things like Caravelli, Hollyridge Strings, Paul Mauriat, Norrie Paramour, etc. Pop songs in instrumental version, with the songs that did not get covered commercially got covered by orchestras, mostly from Europe, who played lush instrumentals of the Top 40 hits of Barry Manilow and America and The Carpenters... familiar songs, instrumental versions.

By the beginning of the 80's, the format demos were ageing and the production of such music had all but stopped, save artists like Richard Clayderman, Jean-Claude Borelli, Francis Goya and the occasional Mauriat and Caravelli release.

The demos and lack of music pretty much ended it as the 80's wound down.

 

[davideduardo]

Those who are over 50 today and like Beautiful Music used to be way under 50 and they liked Beautiful Music when they were younger.

Did you know that people actually used to listen to Frank Sinatra and Perry Como and Bing Crosby. Did you know that people actually used to go hear orchestras like Benny Goodman and Glen Miller and of course later on Stan Kenton.

.

That's standards you are describing. Beautiful music of the late 60's through the late 80's did not play that stuff.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Good evening, David. Of the many people who contribute to these boards, I welcome your observations on this topic because of your experience.

I'm not a music nut, so forgive me when I don't parse the various genres such as Big Band, Standards, Easy Listening and Beautiful Music into their correct times and places. All of them apparently are victims of the same issue: the fans of each genre has aged into usefulness as far as the advertising world is concerned.

One of the formats that enjoyed a good run apparently was The Music of Your Life. I was living in the Midwest and no one in my market made use of it so I would only hear it when I travelled. It was an era when I made a lot of trips to Florida. Getting into the rental car and discovering TMYL was like walking into the candy and fudge store in the tourist towns. How good, how sweet. But it never took long before I was saying to myself: Get me out of the candy store. I want soup. Steak. Cornbread. Vegetables. Enough already with the candy!

I'm not a music nut. A significant number of people are not. They want some news. A touch of sports. Traffic news. Markets. Some stimulating talk. For those, even those in the desirable age ranges, who want "vanilla music" of some sort, radio of today has little to offer this group of people. And people who would be attracted to vanilla music are turned off by screaming car dealer ads, by talk radio that preaches rather than converses, and radio (and TV) that is punctuated by video game sound effects.

David, you have access to the critical data and conversations with people who know everything there is to know about media. If this group is invisible to you and your peers, maybe it doesn't actually exist. I happen to believe this "mystical audience" I envision is probably as large as the Talk Radio audience but maybe it is too elastic, too cat-like in it media behavior to be cultivated by radio.

 

[JeffJasper]

David Eduardo is absolutely correct that the lack of music was a problem.

I was privileged to work at a Schulke-programmed station, WQXY-FM, Baton Rouge, in '80-'81. And later for a TM Easy Listening station in my hometown. Schulke contracted with the BBC for London Symphony and BBC Orchestra cuts to help pad the playlist. And the pieces were as fine as caviar and wine. James Last and several other European orchestras were big contributors to the sound. TM, on the other hand, padded their playlist with their in-house band. Ok, that's mean. They did hire some string players to come in. But whenever a TM-produced piece came on, it was obvious and sounded cheap. Particularly their hideous, unemotional vocals with their jingle-like, staccato, over-enunciated syllables: "Rain. Drops. Keep falling. On. My head."

When I was working the Schulke format, there were certain cuts that consistently made the phone ring with listeners asking for the title, artist, and album. They were that good. Two in particular were "Mull of Kintyre," a McCartney tune, and "The Homecoming" by Haygood Hardy.

Schulke Beautiful Music tended to be slower-tempo than Bonneville or TM, but the quality of the music was absolutely superior. The music was programmed in approximately 13-minute blocks and was live-assist. The overall program level peaked at -2dB. Commercials were all dry-voice and played at -5dB. The headroom from having program at -2db made a tremendous difference in the amount of distortion on the air, and thru a Gates or Harris transmitter it had a sweet, silky quality, and air and dynamics for days. The original Optimod-FM was the processor.

Schulke stations were asked to use RCA or Coles ribbons for the announcers to further push annoyance to the background. I personally disagreed with that, and one weekend night plugged in my personal EV RE-20 to hear the difference. The usually bland RE-20 actually seemed very bright compared to the RCA 77 in V1 bass rolloff mode. I pulled the RE-20 before I got a phone call. We used an Allison Research Kepex with 6db of expansion to kill control room noise.

Would I like to see the return of Beautiful Music? No, I'd LOVE it. BTW, I'm 51.

And thanks, David and others, for any observations you may have.

JJ

 

[davideduardo]

And thanks, David and others, for any observations you may have.

I agree on the quality of the Schulke product and the custom music. While TM had "house band" custom cuts, some of us had the European orchestras that the Independent Beautiful Music group produced for Kala, EZ and others... including my Latin American version of the format.

And, of course, Schulke did real time tape duplication, not high speed as some did then.

The subtleties of the format included precision timing between cuts, pacing of the imaging, and levels on all content.

Another phone-ringer was Roger Whitaker's "Last Farewell."

 

[radiorob2.0]

A late entry to the Beautiful Music format was WCFL(AM) Chicago, that didn't last long for many obvious reasons. Stations that dropped Beautiful Music abruptly usually found out about listener loyalty. I worked at a station that evolved over a year and a half from Beautiful, to light AC/vocals to CHR. Following the start of the CHR format, a local florist walk into the station nailed a black wreath to the wall of the lobby and left never saying a word.

The worst part of the format was being a board op/engineer. You try staying awake with that in the background. If you feel nostalgic for the format, Dish Network offers an easy listening channel in the 900's. Sometime I tune in and play, "Name That Muzak". By the way, WMUU Greenville, SC is one of the few left executing the format.

 

[davideduardo]

Stations that dropped Beautiful Music abruptly usually found out about listener loyalty. I worked at a station that evolved over a year and a half from Beautiful, to light AC/vocals to CHR. Following the start of the CHR format, a local florist walk into the station nailed a black wreath to the wall of the lobby and left never saying a word.

I put on a Beautiful Music station in market 14 (Puerto Rico) in 1975, and it became the leading FM immediately... in ratings and billings. Unfortunately, by 1978, total FM shares in the market were only 14% and I had 3 more Beautiful Music competitors. Over the New Year's weekend of '78 to '99, I switched to an all Salsa.

We had to have the entire office staff there for two days to take the complaints, as I thought we at least owed an explanation to those who took the time to call. Typical was a listener who said that, as a dentist, he made "4 or 5 times the income" of any of the few new listeners we would get. Some calls were of the kind you could not quote to children or your mother...

We had a 4 share as we left Beautiful Music. By the time the new format was 4 months old, it had a 33.5 share, more than triple that of the #2 station. From the irate calls, we could easily have thought that the reverse was true!

 

[gr8oldies]

Maybe all the research tools we have now didn't exist then, but yes, radio stations and advertisers did know about demographics. I do remember a billboard for a BM format called "Music for the Two of Us" that featured a young looking couple (upper 20s/early 30s) with glasses of wine, the implication being that it's perfect music for a romantic evening, and it didn't include putting your teeth in a glass. David, you answered a question I had about how a smaller company like Kalamusic (which o/oed stations in Kalamazoo MI and Ft Wayne IN) had music "recorded especially" for them.

I remember reading an article in the 80s about the BM format and how the demographic was aging out of saleability. Apparently one of the nation's highest rated BM stations commissioned a study about marketing the format to younger demos and the conclusion was that there was no way to interest large numbers of people under the age of 35 in listening to that format (in truth, if BM still existed on the radio, we'd be talking a 70+ format now). A good share of BMers had abandoned the format by the early 90s, some that still had good numbers. WHIO-FM in Dayton (the original, not the current news/talk simulcast) still had double digit shares when they pulled the plug in 1989. They were even blasted by the media critic of their co-owned newspaper. The Country format that replaced it achieved double digit shares very quickly, and has for the most part been number one ever since. A station in Piqua picked up the format (they had been BM for years themselves, but started marketing to Dayton), but abandoned it themselves within a couple of years. It seems that when the big BMer dropped the format in many markets, someone picked it up but didn't stay with it very long (I'm trying to remember how long the "new" WXTZ in Indianapolis lasted).

 

[elchupacabras]

The B/EZ format from the 60-80's is still alive on some internet streams, but it began to subside to the wave of "Lite FM'S" in the late 80's, predecessors of today's soft AC. I agree that the lack of music production and an aging demo were likely the main causes. I cut my radio teeth in the mid to late eighties changing Bonneville Ultra reels. And while there were some decent tracks, you could only take so many Lex de Azevedo bastardizations of Madonna songs. Bonneville's idea was to "Muzak" the hits of the day and play symphonic versions of them. I much more prefer a lounge sound approach, but unfortunately Melcharino and 101 Strings stuff was gone by those days, and the demos just didn't support it. Driving through the Phoenix area in October this past year I was able to pick-up a station from one of the burbs still broadcasting the format and frankly it sounded terrible. Nevertheless for old-times sakes it was a trip!

 

[KFodor]

Maybe all the research tools we have now didn't exist then, but yes, radio stations and advertisers did know about demographics. I do remember a billboard for a BM format called "Music for the Two of Us" that featured a young looking couple (upper 20s/early 30s) with glasses of wine, the implication being that it's perfect music for a romantic evening, and it didn't include putting your teeth in a glass. David, you answered a question I had about how a smaller company like Kalamusic (which o/oed stations in Kalamazoo MI and Ft Wayne IN) had music "recorded especially" for them.

I remember reading an article in the 80s about the BM format and how the demographic was aging out of saleability. Apparently one of the nation's highest rated BM stations commissioned a study about marketing the format to younger demos and the conclusion was that there was no way to interest large numbers of people under the age of 35 in listening to that format (in truth, if BM still existed on the radio, we'd be talking a 70+ format now). A good share of BMers had abandoned the format by the early 90s, some that still had good numbers. WHIO-FM in Dayton (the original, not the current news/talk simulcast) still had double digit shares when they pulled the plug in 1989. They were even blasted by the media critic of their co-owned newspaper. The Country format that replaced it achieved double digit shares very quickly, and has for the most part been number one ever since. A station in Piqua picked up the format (they had been BM for years themselves, but started marketing to Dayton), but abandoned it themselves within a couple of years. It seems that when the big BMer dropped the format in many markets, someone picked it up but didn't stay with it very long (I'm trying to remember how long the "new" WXTZ in Indianapolis lasted).

Yeah, Gr8t...and that media critic never forgave us for changing format, either. Nonetheless, as we proved with the country station, there was a hole for that format which we have filled...and we are still successful today because of that.

Now, there are some stations that play a variant, if you will, of beautiful music. Most of them are in places like Tampa and Phoenix. Some stations call it "The Dove". I've heard a lot of the music and it's not bad. Songs like "Endless Love" and "The End Of The Innocence", done instrumentally. It's not going to work in every circumstance, but, especially in some smaller markets with an abundance of retirees and near retirees, I wonder if it might work...a 45 plus format, to be certain though.

 

[ruger22com]

O.K...here are my views on this subject, and I am pretty much an expert having worked on air at both WCZY-FM and WCZY-AM in Detroit from the start-up of the format until its death (70's and 80's)
During that period (with a larger population Detroit was the #5 national market) There were 3 stations all running that format.
WJR-FM, WWJ-FM, and of course our station WCZY-FM (WCZY-AM was an experiment that died due to VERY POOR directional signal and was later changed to religious formatting which did very well, while leaving WCZY-FM in operation)
Please keep in mind that when WCZY-FM was changed from beautiful music (more on that term below) to Top-40 it had just finished a rating period where it showed up in Arbitron as the #1 station 35+ adults and #2 station 25-54 women.
Why in god's name would you change the format of a station with those numbers and the highest rate card & Profit numbers in town???
New Ownership. Gannett (Who was a newspaper chain that did not know anything about radio) had bought our entire company (Combined Communications..John bayliss's company) and the idiots there figured instead of selling 8 minutes of spots an hour, you could "go rock" and dump in 18 minutes of spots an hour. What they did not figure was that our 8 mins were selling for double of most other stations rates and were sold out 24/7.
The result was there costs went thru the roof when they brought in Dick Purtain, Dave Prince, etc and competing against so many other stations with similar formats...they never again for years even broke even let alone made the massive profits the beutiful music format made.

Much of the problem here was that non-radio people did not understand why a successfull beautiful music format worked. it was thought of as "elevator music" and who would actually want to listen to that????

Here lies the secret of why it did work. We at WCZY-FM almost never referred to it as "Beautiful music", Instead we called ourself "The easy Listening Station" and the place you went after a hard day at work to light a few candles, sip a little wine relax and enjoy yourself with your lover. (Pretty much the same position than alan almond later projected to kill with his pillowtalk ratings.)
This position, combined with announcers who were pros at one-to-one communication, a huge marketing campaign on tv and outdoor, and the custom music (much produced in england) produced a format that killed in the hottest demos for big ticket sales.
It produced an entire music syndication industry with movers like shulte tom churchill, bonneville, etc. providing the expert advice and solid music so the format did not run stale. It was not simply "beautiful Music", our morning show was much like any other drive show with (in addition to more upbeat music) news, sports, talk, current events, etc.
When Gannett killed the combined communications station (one in each major market) many other networks followed suit.
The stations that did not change, continued to make a ton of money for a long time. Eventually though the syndicators stopped producing music, and this helped drive the format to an end.
Oddly, other formats using the same positioning with not to dis-similar music followed with great success...lite a/c....smooth jazz....etc.
I am a firm believer that the majority of people do not change. You CAN put togather a beautiful music format that could work today if you can find a source for more music tracks of popular songs. The problem is finding people who KNOW how to present the format and MAKE IT WORK. The current state of radio management has pushed many of the true pros at programming out of the business to replace them with salemen.

It is sad, as I am a firm believer that this type of format could work again. sadly nobody has the bal*s to give it a shot.

 

[Otto Maddock]

I remember reading an article in the 80s about the BM format and how the demographic was aging out of saleability.

But wasn't this format (along with classical), in fact, highly marketable at one time to an affluent audience such as executive officers and board room members... with sponsors such as luxury cars, financial advice, travel agencies, and fine dining establishments?

What happened? Despite the fact that today's CEO might prefer classic rock, that doesn't mean you're likely to walk into the executive suite and hear Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. A John Fox instrumental would still sound appropriate.

Another phone-ringer was Roger Whitaker's "Last Farewell."

...as must had been "Hymne" by Vangelis, "Once Upon A Time" by Perry Como, and "Even Now" by Nana Mouskouri; and I still say the best Christmas music used to be heard on these stations.

With regular listening (and a keen ear), it's even possible to differentiate some standouts among the instrumentals. This works when the song is not a recognizable hit (plus, it helps if the streaming station posts a playlist on their website). In recent years I've discovered some new favorites like "Love Theme from Mary Queen of Scots" by Percy Faith on WKTZ in Jacksonville FL and "The Rare Old Times" by James Last on KHOY in Laredo TX.

(Ironically, as I type this, I just heard Roger Whittaker's "Last Farewell" on WGCY in Gibson City IL).

 

[davideduardo]

But wasn't this format (along with classical), in fact, highly marketable at one time to an affluent audience such as executive officers and board room members... with sponsors such as luxury cars, financial advice, travel agencies, and fine dining establishments?

No, this was a mass appeal format, which in many markets put several stations in the top 10, with one of them often at #1.

At the time, radio was not bought on income levels and there was little qualitative research compared to today.

Beautiful Music went from the Penthouse to the trailer park, and did well everywhere.

What happened? Despite the fact that today's CEO might prefer classic rock, that doesn't mean you're likely to walk into the executive suite and hear Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. A John Fox instrumental would still sound appropriate.

Instrumentals were very common in that era... how many hit instrumentals do you hear on any format today?

 

[elchupacabras]

Instrumentals were very common in that era... how many hit instrumentals do you hear on any format today?

Or how many songs could be instrumentalized today? I think that is another problem. Hard to make an EZ version of "Slim Shady
by Eminem.

 

[Otto Maddock]

Instrumentals were very common in that era... how many hit instrumentals do you hear on any format today?

Hit instrumentals? None. The most recent ones I can think of from the pop chart would probably be "Dancing With The Lion" by Andreas Vollenweider or Adam Clayton & Larry Mullen of U2's version of the theme from "Mission Impossible" from well over a decade ago, and I don't know if you would really call them hits.

The earlier posts on this thread point out how the production of beautiful music died by the end of the '80s. Since the format consisted mainly of lush instrumental versions of familiar hits of the day, beautiful music might also have become a victim of the direction pop music has taken in general. With catchy hooks and hummable melodies, there were plenty of pop and rock songs back in those days which could lend themselves quite well to an instrumental interpretation. That's what I think is the missing ingredient today. The songs lack melody and singing has been replaced with moaning.

There was a time in the '90s I thought the smooth jazz format showed some potential of becoming an updated style of beautiful music with its dabbling in new age, but, unfortunately, went the other direction and became indistinguishable from an urban-based AC format.

 

[KevinFodor]

WHIO-FM exited the BM market for the same reason "oldies" stations, as they were originally programmed, have now largely gone away.

Once there becomes too heavy a concentration of listeners over age 50 to a station, advertisers begin abandoning the station in droves.

And yes, the newspaper columnist Gr8t mentions allegedly never forgave the station for switching formats. Today, he has retired and writes for a local weekly paper on "seniors issues". Sadly, many of his columns in the last few years in the local paper spent way too much time talking about "the good old days". (Perhaps an indication of how "out of touch" he may have become with local radio and why the stations do the things they do.)

Interestingly enough, though...in markets in places such as Florida and Arizona (where the population percentages of older citizens are greater than most cities, a version of the format, now called "Dove" by many programmers exists...and can thrive. But, it's come a long way from the "elevator music" days of old.

 

[davideduardo]

Interestingly enough, though...in markets in places such as Florida and Arizona (where the population percentages of older citizens are greater than most cities, a version of the format, now called "Dove" by many programmers exists...and can thrive. But, it's come a long way from the "elevator music" days of old.

The only "Dove" I know is WDUV in the Tampa Bay market... #1 12+, but no significant listeners under 65. It is 14th, which is terrible, in billings.

I've never heard a soft / traditional AC called "The Dove" format... and I was a programmer for Beautiful Music in the past. There are scant few formats even close to The Dove, anyway, although Flagstaff / Prescott has a true Beautiful Music station, KAHM.

 

[TheBigA]

Instrumentals were very common in that era... how many hit instrumentals do you hear on any format today?

Smooth jazz? Although not for long.