The Ups and Downs of Elevator Music

By Frank Absher

Long before rock radio adopted restrictive formats and liner cards, there was one company that understood the genius behind tight music radio formatics: Schulke.

Founder Jim Schulke had a great understanding of the powers of background music like the Muzak service. While the sound was denigrated by some who called it “elevator music,” each 15 minute segment was balanced out to maximize TSL (time spent listening). What set Schulke far ahead of other tight formats was the influence the company exerted on client stations.

One of my first experiences in large market radio was at one of those client stations, and their program director possessed a textbook understanding of the format and what was required to really make it work.

Yes, being a jock there was dehumanizing, but it also gave me valuable personal experience that was of benefit to me later.

We announcers were only allowed to read positioners between segments, along with weather and news at the top of the hour. There were lines marked on the control board indicating where the volume controls for the music, spots and microphones were to be set. And there was a very specific reason for that.

On Schulke stations, the spots were played at a lower volume level than the music. Announcers were schooled on the proper way to present the positioners in a sort of softened, almost breathy, voice. The Schulke company even sent out schedules of when each tape reel was to be played.

What really opened my eyes back then was the power the PD had regarding spots. Each commercial provided to the station was “auditioned.” If the commercial was deemed too intrusive or strident, the PD would refuse to run it. We’re talking about a format that only ran six minutes of spots per hour, so you can imagine how valuable a sale was to the sales staff, yet the PD could reject spots based on the way they sounded.

To the station’s management’s credit, they were very much aware of the effect the elevator music could have on a jock who was playing it for six straight hours – especially the folks on the overnight shifts. They had the engineer build an alarm system into the board.

A light would go on above the control board 12.5 minutes after the mike was last used. If the announcer didn’t deactivate the light, a loud alarm would go off 1.5 minutes later, giving the announcer just enough time to wake up from the music-induced sleep to run the next commercial break. And the jocks had their own ways of staying awake on the overnights. One guy would run wind sprints in the office. Another would tune the monitor to a rock station and crank it up.

As much as it was ridiculed, the Schulke format ran its course and created a place for itself in radio history. It also made some station owners a lot of money.

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