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Everything about Beautiful Music totally explained

Beautiful music (sometimes abbreviated as BM, or BM / EZ for beautiful music / easy listening) is a mostly-instrumental music format that was prominent in American radio from the 1960s through the 1980s. "Mood music", "easy listening", and the often derogatory "Muzak" and "elevator music" are other common terms for the format and the style of music that it featured. Beautiful music can also be regarded as a subset of the middle of the road radio format.

History

Beautiful music initially offered soft and unobtrusive instrumental selections on a very structured schedule with limited commercial interruptions. It often functioned as a free background music service for stores, with commercial breaks consisting only of announcements aimed at shoppers already in the stores. This practice was known as "storecasting" and was very common on the FM dial in the 1940s and 1950s.
   Many of these FM stations usually simulcast their AM station and used a subcarrier (SCA), to transmit a hitch-hiker signal to a store receiver by subscription. The signal was usually a slow-moving audio tape of 'background music' or Muzak-type service, which was independent of the simulcast AM signal.
   Some FM stations made more income from these music subscriptions than from their main programming. WITH-FM, in Baltimore, Maryland (1950s & 1960s), had to keep its FM carrier on the air until 2 a.m. for restaurant subscribers...and couldn't sign-off the main FM carrier until that time and thus had to run a repeat of its previous day's evening concert on its main FM program line.

Growth as a radio format

In the early 1960s, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a standard for transmitting and receiving stereo signals on a single channel of the FM band. In addition to delivering stereo sound, FM broadcasting provided a clearer sound quality and better resistance to interference than AM, thus being the ideal vehicle for broadcasting the beautiful music format.
   In 1963, Marlin Taylor created a custom-designed beautiful music format at Philadelphia's WDVR-FM, and within four months, WDVR became the #1 rated FM station in the Philadelphia market, becoming not only one of the first big successes in FM broadcasting but instrumental in establishing the viability of the FM band. WDVR was a resource for mature listeners who were driven away from AM radio at the time when WFIL and WIBG (and others) were going to rock and roll programming. WDVR's many large roadside billboards made the adult audience aware of the new station.

Other pioneers of the format

Another pioneer of the Beautiful Music format was KIXL-FM in Dallas, Texas, which operated at "104 on both dials" (1040 AM and 104.5 FM) during the 1950s and 1960s. Pronounced "Kixil" on the air, KIXL was well-known for seamlessly blending one song into another with the help of specially designed instrumental bridges. They were also known for a popular feature called "Think It Over", in which the smooth-voiced announcer softly intoned a proverb or a word of wisdom, followed by a short pause and the admonition, "Think it over."¹
   Inspired by the success of KIXL, Gordon McLendon - best known for programming Top 40-formatted KLIF, the top-rated station in Dallas throughout the 1950s and 1960s - decided to start up a beautiful music station of his own in the San Francisco market. He took over KROW-AM, licensed to nearby Oakland, and revamped it with a Beautiful Music format as KABL (pronouned "cable")¹.
   Other pioneers of the format included WPAT-AM/FM in Paterson, New Jersey, which served the New York market; WJBR-FM in Wilmington, Delaware, whose signal reached Philadelphia (home of WDVR); and WQMR-AM/WGAY-FM, which served the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area; KBMI-AM "The Beautiful Music Island", Las Vegas and KUMU AM-FM, Honolulu, HI.

Reel-to-reel tape

Others, such as Jim Schulke, devised a method of buying air time on FM stations in bulk and reselling the blocks to interested advertisers. Schulke formed Stereo Radio Productions (SRP) to help his stations get better ratings and pull in more agency advertising dollars. His stations used 600 ten-and-a-half-inch diameter reels of stereo reel-to-reel tape set on multiple machines so that 15 minute segments would play at a time, alternating from one player to another, allowing a varied programming format in which no half-hour was repeated within a two-week period. One of Schulke's stations using this "matched flow" concept was WDVR's chief competitor in the beautiful music format in Philadelphia, WWSH-FM.
   Some group station owners created their own "in-house" format distribution system. Bonneville Broadcasting Systems serviced mostly Bonneville-owned stations, with easy listening music distributed first on reel-to-reel tape and compact disc, and later adopted satellite distribution, often under the slogan "Satellite Stereo" (as was used by Malrite Communications'. WEZO-FM in Rochester, New York, was one of the independent radio stations signed with Bonneville.)
   Several other tape syndicators offered easy listening music formats on reel-to-reel tape and other formats until the 1980s, when industry consolidation and a decline in listener appeal reduced the audience for the format.

Instrumental-vocal mix

Many beautiful music programmers constructed their own style of sets, incorporating some vocal songs, usually one to each 15-minute set. Most stations adopted a 70-80% instrumental - 20-30% vocal mix, a few offered 90% instrumentals, and a handful were entirely instrumental. Initially, the vocalists consisted of artists such as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, Patti Page, Johnny Mathis, Perry Como, Doris Day, and others. By the 1970s, softer songs by artists like The Carpenters, Anne Murray, John Denver, Barry Manilow, Barbara Streisand, Dionne Warwick, Neil Diamond, and others were added to the mix on many stations. Also, some of these stations even played soft songs by artists like Elvis Presley, Beatles, Billy Joel, and other rock-based artists. The main test for the vocals played wasn't the background of the artist but whether or not the song is extremely soft. All vocals on such stations had to be extremely soft. Therefore, on one hand a song like "She's Out Of My Life" by a non-core artist like Michael Jackson would be heard on some of these stations. On the other hand, even uptempo jazzier songs by standards artists, such as "Detour" by Patti Page, wouldn't be heard on beautiful music stations except during specialty shows.
   Also, during weekday morning drive times, most beautiful music stations increased the vocals to as much as 50 percent in order to accommodate a broader audience.
   While these stations were mostly playing instrumentals, some had a couple specialty programs that were vocal based such as a Big Band program on Saturday nights, a Frank Sinatra show sometime on the weekends, and maybe a program featuring Broadway showtunes.
   Generally, the recordings heard on beautiful music stations were newly orchestrated arrangements of the songs of the day. These were available from the major record labels and performed by such artists as Andre Kostelanetz, Percy Faith, Mantovani, the 101 Strings, Billy Vaughn, The Living Strings, Frank Chacksfield, and many, many others. When the record companies cut back on releasing this material, syndicators of the format had custom recordings produced for them, performed by many different orchestras from around the world. These new custom recordings were usually instrumental versions of current or recent rock and roll or pop hit songs, a move that was thought would give the stations more mass appeal without selling out, but also disgusted some longtime listeners of the format. Some stations would also occasionally play earlier big band-era recordings from the 1940s and early 1950s.
   Many beautiful music stations would air a few Christmas songs per hour shortly before Thanksgiving. Then sometimes as early as the first of December, they'd switch to wall to wall Christmas music and continue on until New Years Day. The vocal content would increase to about 40 to 60 percent at that point. There would then be a special marathon of seasonal music on December 24 and December 25. After the 25th, most continued to play wall to wall Christmas music until the first of the year. This concept was later borrowed (and expanded upon) by Soft AC, AC, and even some country music stations. Today, the average wall to wall Christmas format ends at around 6PM the 25th of December.
   The predominantly instrumental-vocal mix is still in use today, mainly by smooth jazz stations.

List of stations

Some of the most notable and highest-rated beautiful music stations, in addition to those already mentioned, included:
Many of the aforementioned stations were owned or programmed by Schulke or competing syndicators such as Bonneville and Century (Bonneville purchased Schulke in 1984). Ed Winton, a protege of Gordon McLendon, brought the format to Connie B. Gay's WGAY 1050 AM in Silver Spring, Maryland changing AM to WQMR. Simulcasting on WGAY-FM (now WIHT) and WQMR-AM (Washington, D.C., and Silver Spring, Maryland) Ed Winton, Bill Doty and Alan Campbell programmed a very successful independent beautiful music format beginning in the early 1960s and ending in the early 1990s. Later, Bob Chandler, tutored by Winton, a leading exponent of the genre, was Operations Director. He organized repeated trips to Europe to make instrumental cover recordings of popular vocal music, which were then made available to beautiful music stations in other markets. Chandler's continued work to keep the format salient paid off, as WGAY reached number one 12+ in the Washington Arbitron ratings for the first time in 1984, at a time when the format as a whole was beginning to die off.

Declining years

As the format continued into the 1980s, more vocals were incorporated into each set, and the vocals played on beautiful music stations were more likely to be from softer-styled "top 40" artists such as Barbra Streisand, The Carpenters, Billy Joel, Whitney Houston, Beatles, Elton John, and even by a few then-Hot AC-type artists than from "adult standards" artists like Dean Martin, Andy Williams and Doris Day. Over time, on many stations, the instrumentals were cut back to about half and then eliminated completely, making way for the "light adult contemporary" format. By the end of the decade, the popularity of other formats, such as Top 40, album oriented rock, and classic rock began to dominate the FM dial. Other beautiful music stations kept playing instrumentals but dropping the Percy Faith- and Henry Mancini-type artists in favor of Smooth Jazz instrumentalists like Kenny G, Grover Washington Jr., Chuck Mangione, and others. These stations evolved into Smooth Jazz outlets. Advertisers were going after a younger audience, and some stations totally dropped the easy listening-based format and switched to whatever seemed more appropriate for the audiences that the advertisers were going after ranging from Top 40 to rock to country to even talk.
   Bonneville sold its beautiful music related assets to Broadcast Programming (now part of Jones Radio Networks) in November 1993.
   Some beautiful music stations did make a successful transition into adult contemporary formats, although often not without call letter changes to drop the identity of being a so-described "elevator music" station. The aforementioned WDVR in Philadelphia, which later changed its calls to WEAZ, became AC-formatted WBEB-FM in the early 1990s and continues to this day as a highly rated station. Other examples include Chicago's WLAK-FM, which became WLIT, Charlotte's WEZC and WRLX, which today are now, respectively, WKQC and WLYT, and Atlanta's WPCH which became WLTM (now WUBL-FM). Other stations continue with AC formats bearing the same calls as their beautiful music predecessors, including: KOST and KBIG in Los Angeles, WSB-FM in Atlanta, WTVR in Richmond, VA, WSHH in Pittsburgh, WDOK in Cleveland, WLIF in Baltimore, KMEZ in Dallas, KOSI in Denver, CO, WNIC in Detroit, and WJBR in Wilmington, DE, as well as, in Canada, CHFI in Toronto and CHQM(FM) in Vancouver, B.C.. WPAT and WPAT-FM in New York City even evolved into an adult contemporary format at the end of 1992. Unfortunately, they continued to be perceived as easy listening, though they were more uptempo and played more current music product than cross-town WLTW. They even had a Top 30 AC countdown beginning in 1993. They became evem more of an uptempo AC station resembling then crosstown WMXV (Now Urban WWPR) in 1994, but were eventually sold in 1996. WPAT-FM became a Spanish language soft hits station while WPAT 930 became a brokered station.
   In Tampa, FL, WDUV also lives on with a mixture of soft AC hits and oldies and with one or two instrumentals per hour (though the instrumentals are now more likely to be of the "smooth jazz" variety). WDUV ("The Dove") is also consistently the top-rated station overall in the Tampa Arbitron ratings, despite its move in 1999 from 103.5 to the weaker 105.5 frequency. WOEZ (88.3 FM) in Knoxville, TN, known as "EZ 88", featured a mix of beautiful music, standards and smooth jazz unique to its market, but the station now plays a mix of adult standards and soft adult contemporary.

Beautiful music today

The beautiful music format didn't die completely. Today's smooth jazz radio stations maintain the structure and style of the beautiful music format. And although today there are only a handful of true beautiful music stations still on the air, the format still lives on a few non-commercial radio stations, including WKTZ (90.9 FM) in Jacksonville, Florida, which is owned by Jones College and also streams its programming online. WKTZ plays many pop-standard selections and some big band material, as was common on many beautiful music stations during the 1960s and 1970s. Other non-commercial stations offering the beautiful music format include KLUX (89.5 FM) in Corpus Christi, TX, KHOY (88.1 FM) in Laredo, TX, KNCT-FM (91.3 FM) in Killeen, TX and WJMJ (88.9 FM) in Hartford, CT.
   Some commercial beautiful music stations do still exist as well, often in areas with large retiree populations, and are often very popular in the markets they serve, especially with older listeners. An annual influx of vacationers from colder climates has helped such stations as "Wave 101" WAVV (101.1 FM) Marco Island (Naples), FL, and KWXY (98.5 FM) in Cathedral City, CA (Palm Springs market) consistently rank number one in the 12+ Arbitron ratings in their respective markets. KWXY, in fact, has had essentially the same format since signing on in 1964. WJIB (AM 740) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, owned by Bob Bittner, is notable as one of the few remaining beautiful music stations serving a major metropolitan area; in fact, it features the same calls and format as a former beautiful music FM in Boston (now WTKK-FM, 96.9). WJIB also includes a large amount of adult standards, traditional pop music and oldies material in its playlist. Bob Bittner also owns WJTO (730 AM) in Bath, ME, serving the Portland market, which features a format similar to that of WJIB.
   Other examples of commercial radio stations continuing to feature the beautiful music format include KAHM-FM (102.1 FM) in Prescott, AZ; WGCY (106.3 FM) in Gibson City, IL; WMUU (94.5 FM) in Greenville, SC; WHLC (104.5 FM) in Highlands, NC; KNXR (97.5 FM) in Rochester, MN; and CKOT (101.3 FM, Easy 101) in Tillsonburg, ON, Canada. Jones Radio Networks supplies beautiful music to a few commercial stations.
   Beautiful instrumental music can also be found on Internet radio feeds such as Live365. Using Bonneville and SRP veterans, XM Satellite Radio programs a dedicated beautiful music channel (Escape) for its subscribers, and the Music Choice digital satellite service now has a permanent music channel devoted to the format.

Contemporary beautiful music stations

  • CJWL Ottawa, ON - 98.5 FM "The Jewel"; features a nightly Beautiful Music program as part of its Adult Standards format
  • CKOT Tillsonburg, ON - 101.3 FM "Easy 101"
  • KHOY Laredo, TX - 88.1 FM
  • KLUX Corpus Christi, TX - 89.5 FM - "Good Company"
  • KNXR Rochester, MN - 97.5 FM
  • KWXY Cathedral City, CA - 98.5 FM
  • WAVV Marco Island, FL - 101.1 FM "Wave 101"
  • WCVU Solana, FL - 104.9 FM "Seaview 104.9"
  • WGCY Gibson City, IL - 106.3 FM
  • WHLC Highlands, NC - 104.5 FM
  • WJEJ Hagerstown, MD - 1240 AM
  • WJIB Cambridge, MA - 740 AM
  • WJMJ Hartford, CT - 88.9 FM (calls: Jesus, Mary, Joseph; operated by the local Catholic archdiocese)
  • WJTO Bath, ME - 730 AM
  • WKEZ Tavernier, FL - 96.9 FM "Easy 96.9"
  • WKTZ Jacksonville, FL - 90.9 FM
  • WMUU Greenville, SC - 94.5 FM
  • WOEZ Knoxville, TN - 88.3 FM "EZ88"
  • WRDV Warminster, PA - 89.3 FM / WLBS Bristol, PA - 91.7 FM (weekend show: "Bill Hower's Music Box")
  • KAHM Prescott, AZ - 102.1 "We're calm - KAHM"
  • WCAM Camden, SC 1580 AM
  • KGUD Longmont, CO - 90.7 FM "K-Good"

    Artists and music

  • Some instrumental artists associated with beautiful music have included:
  • Among the vocal artists featured on beautiful music stations may include many of the same ones featured on the adult standards format and others:
    Further Information

    Get more info on 'Beautiful Music'.


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