How Rodney Allen Rippy brought back the ‘Beautiful Music’ radio format

Here’s an interesting one: the format known as “Beautiful Music” has returned. Not to the local airwaves per se, but to the internet on a tribute station called KJBM, standing for Just Beautiful Music. You can hear it at kjbmradio.com.

You might be wondering … Beautiful Music? For whom? Didn’t it go away in the 1970s?

So I reached out to the creators, Rodney Allen Rippy and Dan Pettegrew, both of whom explained that yes, indeed it went away on the local airwaves, and that was their reason for going online: they wanted to provide a format that wasn’t available anywhere else.

Before I go on, yes, that is the same Rodney Allen Rippy you remember from the Jack in the Box commercials of the 1970s, with the tag line and song, “Take Life a Little Easier.” After he ended his association with Jack in the Box, Rippy went into acting and marketing, and has been associated with radio and television stations behind the scenes … including Westwood One Radio Networks, KFWB (980 AM), and KDOC-TV (Channel 56).

Apparently not taking his own advice regarding taking life easier, Rippy has been busy of late getting ready to launch the Rippy Foundation, designed to assist at-risk youth, senior citizens and veterans.

Pettegrew is a former executive with Clear Channel (now iHeart Media) and was in charge of, among other duties, “traffic” — making sure commercials run when they are supposed to run as well as making sure the content is consistent among the stations he oversaw. He’s now involved with audio and broadcasting media services as well as partnering with Rippy and the Ripped Marketing Group.

Also involved with KJBM is James Simon, another veteran broadcaster who joined the others in creating the music library for the online station. Selections include string versions of popular songs such as “It Had to Be You,” “Stardust,” “Over the Rainbow,” “Love me Tender,” “The Warmth of the Sun,” “This Girl is Mine,” “Saving All My Love For You” and more… over 3,400 titles in all, spanning over three decades.

Rippy explained: “KUSC (91.5 FM)  has established itself as the LA station that programs orchestral instrumentals featuring classical music, but, what if someone enjoys listening to those instrumentals who doesn’t necessarily like classical?  That’s where we come in … KJBM programs pop music performed by pop orchestras.”

If you are of the right age, you may remember the leader of Beautiful Music locally: KPOL, which was on both AM and FM … and was the top-rated station at various times during its tenure. It left the air long ago; the AM signal is now KMPC (1540 AM) and the FM is KLLI (93.9 FM). My father loved KPOL, and it was the only station ever heard in his ’67 Camaro when he drove it. So I asked Rippy if there was truly a market for the music, considering my father would be 98 years old today if he were still alive.

“Absolutely,” he told me. “I like it myself … it brings back memories from when I was younger, and like my own old song, it helps listeners to take life easier!” I had to agree … done right, string orchestra music can be quite relaxing and enjoyable. I am listening as I write this.

Oh, and the commercials heard on the station are voiced by Rippy himself!

Pettegrew says they have listeners from all over the globe, adding “our goal is to get KJBM on a broadcast radio station like KPOL was in the LA market.

“KJBM should sound like KPOL,” he continued. “The music library we are using is the same traditional beautiful music, mostly LPs,  that stations programmed back in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.  Anyone who remembers KPOL will definitely enjoy KJBM.”

Nielsen’s new rule

Nielsen Ratings, the company that compiles ratings for radio and television stations across the country, is changing the way it registers listening in markets where it uses what is called the PPM — Portable People Meter — to measure listenership.

The PPM works by decoding a signal sent along with the programming; it cannot be heard by listeners though some say it can negatively affect the sound. As someone with a meter listens to a station, the PPM microphone picks up the program, decodes the special signal, and credits the station in the ratings calculations.

What is changing  is how long one must hear a station for credit … it used to be five minutes in a quarter hour to give credit for that quarter hour; as of Jan. 1 it will be just three.

While that seems like a small amount — and it is — there is an opposing problem: The PPM system can’t “hear” if you listen on a headphone, and it can’t always correctly decode the signal if, for example, you are listening in a noisy environment such as in a car with the windows down. Or at a party. Or when the radio is playing quietly. So perhaps the three minutes helps make up for that.

Certainly its not perfect, but that’s what we have for now. It will be interesting to see if much changes in the January ratings report.

Richard Wagoner is a San Pedro freelance columnist covering radio in Southern California. Email rwagoner@socalradiowaves.com