Satellite Delivered Formats
Only about a handful of adult standards stations today are live and locally programmed around-the-clock. Many have affiliated with nationally distributed satellite formats to cut costs; due to advertiser perceptions about the audiences these stations primarily target, a large number of adult standards stations have trouble selling airtime to advertisers, which makes them unprofitable. For example, KIXI 880 AM, serving the Seattle market and KKIN 930 AM partway, terminated its local airstaff to affiliate with the Music of Your Life network. Many others have simply dumped the format altogether, often for all-talk or all-sports formats, oldies, or other formats deemed more profitable than standards by management.
Music of Your Life was an adult standards satellite delivered format that probably more than any other source defined the format. Music of Your Life, which was founded by Al Ham in 1978 and boasts a roster of well-known personalities including Deana Martin, Peter Marshall and weekend host Pat Boone, was distributed by Jones Radio Networks. A dispute between the Music of Your Life CEO and former PD and host Chcuk Southcott along with former jocks Wink Martindale and Gary Owens (among others) over lack of payment led to Owens, Martindale and company splitting off and Jones ultimately deciding to abandon the format at the end of 2007 and introduce a new format of its own (since merged into the Dial Global format). Music of Your Life is still distributed independently. Los Angeles radio legend Johnny Magnus rejoined the format in 2008.
Dial Global (formerly part of Westwood One) has an adult standards format distributed via satellite; Dial Global's is called "Adult Standards" (known on-air as "America's Best Music"). Prior to 2010, ABC distributed Stardust/Timeless Classics/Timeless. Stardust/Timeless Classics was consolidated with a soft oldies/AC network owned by ABC-—Unforgettable Favorites/Memories—-in 2006, creating "Timeless". Westwood One originally called its format AM Only and for a time, as the name suggests, offered the format only to AM stations; today, a handful of FM stations also air Westwood One's format.
While Music of Your Life has not eliminated all of the big-band and traditional pop music from its playlist, Westwood One and ABC dropped much of the older music in favor of softer pop and rock oldies from the 1960s and 1970s top 40 era and a good deal of soft AC material as well. Under Dial Global, some of the older-style songs are making a comeback on the Westwood One format. ABC discontinued its Timeless service early in 2010; that same year, Music of Your Life added more 1960s oldies to its playlist.
Clear Channel Communications' Format Lab also features at least two adult standards formats.
Read more about this topic: Adult Standards
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