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Beautiful music 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. more...

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Beautiful music can also be regarded as a subset of MOR 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, particularly on independently-owned FMs that did not have an AM sister station to simulcast.

Growth as a radio format: WDVR

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, and within four months, WDVR-FM 101.1 FM became the #1 rated FM station in Philadelphia, becoming not only the first big success in FM broadcasting but instrumental in establishing the viability of the FM band.

KIXL and other stations

Although WDVR perfected the "beautiful music" formula and confirmed its appeal, it did not invent the format. According to a 2003 article in Popular Communications magazine by broadcast historian Shannon Huniwell, perhaps the first true "beautiful music" station in the United States was KIXL in Dallas, Texas, which operated at "104 on both dials" (1040 AM and 104.5 FM) during the 1950s and 1960s. Pronounced "Kicksill" 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." 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 '60s - 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," as in "cable car"). 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.