Short Stuff: BM Radio | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. Hey and welcome to the short stuff. I'm. Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here. too and this is short stuff the. routinest tootinous down home sasparilla. drinking podcast on the planet. That's. right. Welcome to WSYSK, your source of all the smooth podcasting. sounds. That was great, Chuck. You uh. you have a a future in radio, I think. Oh, great. I hear there's a bright. future in radio.

So, we are talking radio. That's why you. just did that. And we're talking about a. specific kind of radio, but we should. kind of go back a little bit to the. beginning because, and I should, it. occurred to me that there are people who. listen to us, they won't even know what. we're talking about with AM and FM, but. if you know enough about radio, there. were two bands, the AM band and the FM. band. And when you if you grew up in. this late 70s, 80s, 90s, you knew that. AM radio was as square as.

a Rubik's Cube. Yes. And that FM radio. was where it was at. But it turns out. that when FM radio first came on the. scene in the 60s and then early 70s, it. was square and AM radio was where it was. at. That's where you'd hear hits and. rock and stuff like that. FM was so. super squared that it actually gave. birth to what we consider easy listening. music today. By the way, I know this is. going to be kind of a long one, but I. still have to say this. When you were. just stumped on trying to think of a. square thing, all I could think of was.

the little Homer Simpson bubble above. your head with just like a donut or that. that black and white donkey swatting. flies with his tail. Yeah, that one. always gets me. No, I thought of a Citro. Wilson um quote that I just can't I. can't say, but it's hilarious. All. right. Well, tell me later. Okay. All. right. So, uh you left off that AM radio. square, FM radio was where the rock hits. were. I think you said the opposite. Well, if you grew up like we did, right? They did a switcheroo. And early on, AM.

radio was the cool one and FM was the. upstart that was trying to find its way. Yeah. And so FM essentially gave birth. to that easy listening music which is. also called elevator music. Some people. call it good music. But the type of. music format that we're going to talk. about today is known as beautiful music. And it is a great name for a great kind. of music if you ask me. Yeah. And you. know if you heard our music episode uh. we talked a lot about this stuff. UAC is. of course a.

proprietary eponym or aka a company. Right. Right. Or is did I use that. right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Uh but. beautiful music is that it is like let's. take a a pop hit of the day like a. Beatles song or something and let's. let's arrange it as a orchestral. arrangement. A lot of strings. Uh we'll. either do pop hits or maybe do old. standards from like the great American. song book. Uh and you know we're going. to make it super polished, very easy on. the ears. We're going to remove the.

vocals almost always and instead of like. the singing there's going to be like a. flute or a clarinet or something is the. is the singing voice or if it does have. human voices singing it's probably going. to be like a chorus just singing a. little bit of it here and there. Yeah. Or doing that that kind of singing that. the the um vocalist does on the Star. Trek theme where she's just using her. voice as an instrument. I don't know the. Star Trek theme. Uh, what? I don't I've. probably heard it, but I can't call up. like, "Oh, yeah, that thing." Uh, it.

goes. [Music]. It turns out I do know that, actually. Yeah. So, like you said, the vocals were. almost always removed except when they. were humming or that kind of thing. Sometimes they would include vocals, but. they like the carpenters were a little. too hard-edged for beautiful music. So. they would have like the Raycon of. singers Yeah. sing the song and provide. the vocals. Like this is how softened.

they would take these songs and make. them. And I mean, if it was done right, even like the hardest core punk, even. the members of Crass would hear that. song and be like, I'm not going to admit. this out loud, but that is actually. beautiful music. Are you going on a limb and saying that. everybody likes this stuff? I I No, not No, no, no. Not as a genre. for sure. I'm just saying there were. some there's this one version of what's.

a what's new pussycat that is way better. than any version Tom Jones Brack it's so. good that I really think that basically. anybody could hear it and be like this. is this is a great song it actually is. great whether they'd admit it or not but. I don't think that that would. automatically convert them to beautiful. music I'm just saying in some instances. done perfectly it really is beautiful. music all right well pressing forward uh. Uh, the BM format really took off.

because of an FCC ruling in 1965 that. said if you are a company that has AM. stations and FM stations, you got to. play different stuff because at the time. there were companies that are like, "Hey, this is great. We can just. broadcast the same thing on AM and FM. and get ads on AM and also get different. ads on FM and essentially double down on. our product." And that's like the. opposite of what they were trying to do. with FM to begin with. So the FCC came. around in ' 65 said you can't do this. anymore. You got to play different. stuff. And so Beautiful Music came along.

and said, "Hey, this is a pretty cheap. solution. Uh it's it's going to be sell. a lot of ads because it's going to be. directly um aimed at women uh especially. housewives because you know what they're. doing? They're at home all day doing. that housework, listening to music, and. this will make them happy while they're. uh doing their housework. They're going. to have it on in the background and. we're going to pump ads in there for all. the stuff that they're making the buying. decisions over, which is household. stuff. Yeah. Because they were the.

target demographic of advertisers at the. time. They bought most of the stuff the. advertisers were selling. Um they made. those day-to-day decisions about. purchases. So, they were what teenagers. are today as far as the target demo, right? Um, and it was just basically. assumed and presumed that women would. not want anything uh intrusive or. jarring or something. They just wanted. smooth, beautiful music. So much so that. like a version of this was called music. only for a woman. That's what the.

industry called, right? The thing is, um, despite the fact that. that this was set up to advertise to. women directly, Beautiful Music as a. whole, as a format on the radio, actually, um, I guess the best way to. put is mellowed out as far as. advertising goes and and was very. protective and defensive of the listener. experience, which meant cutting down on. ads and doing all sorts of other. interesting things to ads, too. Yeah. There was a company in particular uh.

that came along called Schuli Radio. Productions SRP and they were a they. became like the biggest player in uh. syndication like being a syndication. company for the BM format because they. offered they were like here we're going. to send you these ready to play realtore. tapes. It's all programmed. You just. slap that sucker on there and push play. and and you're set. And they said this. sounds great. and they said, "Oh, but. wait a minute. If you want to use our. stuff, like we're audio files, so we.

want the listening experience to be. great and we want it to be kind of. perfect. So, you've got to update your. broadcasting equipment uh because we're. sending you high quality tapes and they. need to come across that way. You got to. hire uh an engineer that really knows. what they're doing and make sure this is. all going to go as we say it goes." And. those ads, those 16 minutes of ads an. hour that you're playing, you can only. do six minutes of those an hour. And. when you do, you got to have those lower. in volume than the music even. And all. the stuff you should know, listeners. stood up and cheered. Yeah, it's true.

Because they found that if you had the. radio on a low enough volume, those ads. at six dB less were like you couldn't. even hear them sometimes at a certain. volume threshold, even though you could. still hear the music. And there was. another thing about the ads, too. They're like, you cannot use. attentiongrabbing tactics to advertise. And in some cases, some of these local. radio stations had to go back to their. advertisers and be like, "Crazy Murray, we're going to have to tone this down. quite a bit." Yeah. And like they they.

had to re-record, rewrite ads to follow. these Shuly standards. And the reason. that Shuli could get away with this was. because they were selling not just like. pre-recorded tapes that you can just put. on and have your radio station. They. were selling what music did as well. um. that there was si a scientific basis to. this that um like followed the rhythm of. the day and like built up and crested. and then waned and then built up and. crusted and waned just like music. Um. the thing is is just like music that was.

essentially totally ma made up, but. Schuli still had the data to prove it. People who listen to beautiful music. radio listened essentially all day. Yeah. Uh feels like a good time for a. break. Agreed. And we'll be right back. to finish up with BM radio right after. this. Learning things with. [Music]. all the things you should know.

[Music]. All the stuff we learn from Josh and. Chuck. stuff you should know. All right, we're back. I think where we. left off, uh, Schuli was doing pretty. good business. Uh, Crazy Murray was. reduced to slightly eccentric Murray, right? And um they were they were.

selling like hotcakes and they had the. ratings to prove it like you said even. though the science was not true and they. were listening for hours and hours and. hours. But that posed a problem or I. guess presented a problem which was hey. they're listening for so many hours a. day they're just having to hear the same. playlist in order basically when it. loops back around and we can't get these. tapes out the door fast enough to you. guys. Uh, so people have like a, you. know, because they were concerned about. the listener experience and certainly. listening to a a playlist on a loop is. not a good one. No. And so some.

companies came along that said, "All. right, well, let's just start hiring. conductors and arrangers and putting. together our own stuff." Uh, until a. company called Bonavville came along. with a really unique idea, right? Yeah. Bonavville did what Schuli did, like you. would get pre um recorded tapes of. beautiful music from them, but you also. had to have essentially a random. automatic tape player that would select. a tape, a song from a tape at random. So. even though you had like the same set of.

say 50 songs, there was never going to. be a playlist over the course of like. say 12 hours that was the same as. before. Same songs here or there, but. never the same entire playlist starting. over every 12 hours. Yeah. So, they send. tapes and and packages. Tapes and tapes. Tapes and tapes. Oh, man. Miss those. guys. Uh and then Yeah. I mean, a pretty. good technology at the time to to. randomly select and, you know, queue up. different songs. So, it was it was a. pretty big leap forward. Uh and well,

well, Beautiful Music itself was. basically an incubator for figuring out. how to standardize and automate radio. That's where that's the cradle of it is. beautiful music, weirdly enough. Yeah. And it it spread throughout the country. as a format. Uh every city had at least. one station. Um if you were a big city, you probably had a few. Um a lot of. times it was like, you know, in Detroit, WJOI, like very mellow call signs. Uh. they they just wanted to really put out. um like brand themselves as BM radio. because it was such a big deal. But it.

wasn't a big deal for that long uh. because you know buying power shifted as. rock and roll came along and younger. listeners became the dominant sort of. listener of radio and one by one they. kind of you know BM radio station. switched over which is a very jarring. thing uh for any radio station format. change. I'm sure we've all suffered. those uh where you're like well I can't. listen to this station anymore because. you're just not the same radio station. Do you remember the opposite happening. when 99X came out in the early 90s and.

they played like the Smiths and it was. like what are the Smiths doing on the. radio? This is awesome. Yeah, because 99. in Atlanta before that was sort of. cheesy pop and all of a sudden it was um. al alternative music which was the first. the first true alternative station in. Atlanta. Yeah. Like truly alternative. too, especially at first. Yeah. I was a. 96 rock kid but then Oh yeah. Yeah. But. when 99X came along, I was into that. But then 99X got really bad, too. Right.

But at first it was pretty great. No, I. agree. Because you couldn't hear the. Smith on the radio unless you went left. to the dial, which I was doing with the. great uh album 88. Oh, album 88, guys. For anybody who didn't live in Atlanta. while album 88 was on the air, it was so. great. It had the best shows. They. played the best like regular rotation. music. it like it was a great great. radio station and that like you can't. find it anywhere. Nobody's archived it. sadly enough. I think they still have it.

on the weekends. Um yeah, the weekday. they switched over to NPR which is dumb. because we already have an NPR station. Yeah, they they play basically the same. thing. Yeah, but I'm still pretty sure. that Ali8 exists on the weekends. Um and. if you haven't heard of it, you may. maybe have heard of the great WFMU out. of New Jersey. It's it's our version of. WFMU, but every most every city had a. great left of the dial station. Well, this one was the best left of the dial. station. And I did do you remember Adam. Bomb? He uh he had like a Soul show. No,

I don't remember that one. Soul Kitchen, I think it was called. Okay, I remember. Soul Kitchen. Yeah, that was Adam Bomb. And that's not that's definitely not. archived anywhere on the internet. So, if anybody has old tapes of Adam Bomb. Soul Kitchen, please post them. Yeah, they had Reeling in the Ears was a good. show. Their Sunday morning reae show was. amazing. Do you remember the Sunday. Saturday morning cartoon themed Yeah. show? That was a good one, too. Good. stuff. Uh, I think we should just put. one last thing. You said that a BM. station started to drop like flies in.

the or 80s in particular. By 1990, they. were basically gone. There was a. fictionalized um like version of this. event. Yeah. And we like to call that. fictionalized version W KRP in. Cincinnati. You know what? I did not. remember this. And I love that show. until you included it in the article and. I was like, "Wait a minute. I do. remember the pilot." Like I remember. that happening. That's what happened. That's why they hired Andy as station. manager because they were converting. from beautiful music to rock and that's. exactly what was going on at the time.

around him. Yeah. And and that's why Dr. Johnny Fever and Venus Flight Trap all. were stoked about their job. Yeah. And. Herb Tarlick had to go to Crazy Murray. and be like, "Can we can we turn you. upward now because we're a rock. station." That's right. and Lonnie. Anderson said, "Did I type this right?". and leaned over the desk. That was a. good show. Uh oh, let's thank our um uh. sources for this episode. Chuck Tarver. at the University of Delaware, Go. Bluehens, Ken Mills at Radio World,

Diffen.com, Ken Sapura at Kradleville, and the Forum. at Radio Discussions. Uh and since we. have nothing more to say about beautiful. music, short stuff is out. Stuff You Should Know is a production of. iHeart Radio. For more podcasts, iHeart. Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple. Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your. favorite shows. [Music].