Expansion
The company gradually expanded its operations to the southern eastern seaboard and eventually covered most of the continental U.S. except for the northeastern states, the Rocky Mountain states, and the Pacific Northwest. It also began to write "ordinary life" insurance to better risks, such as middle class office workers, religious ministers, accountants, bankers, and similar persons.
Its greatest marketing development, however, was probably its beginning WSM radio in 1923. Taking its callsign from the company's motto, We Shield Millions (which was in turn taken from its shield-shaped logo), the station began to broadcast advertising, including the company's own messages, over its powerful 50,000-watt clear channel signal. Its studios were initially in the National Life office building in downtown Nashville. In 1925, management began the program that was soon the become the Grand Ole Opry, which made country music (then generally referred to as "hillbilly music") more mainstream than it had been previously. In 1950, the company spawned Nashville's first television station, WSM-TV (now WSMV-TV).
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“Artistic genius is an expansion of monkey imitativeness.”
—W. Winwood Reade (1838–1875)