Miami 1982 "Música en Flor" Syndication for Latin America x
Beautiful Music for The Americas
In 1980,
when Shulke, TM, IGM, Bonneville, Kalamusic and Churchill filled
the US airwaves with Beautiful Music, there was no syndication
service catering to Latin America. Yet instrumental music had
been traditionally more popular in this area of the world. When
it became apparent that WHTT was not long for the world, I
started "Música en Flor" to create full-concept syndication to
Latin America, including music, technical advice, voice tracking
and even advertising slicks and promo copy and press releases.
Stations in 17 Countries
The project was
enormously successful for a station-count perspective (nearly 70
in total at one time).
Foreign currency restrictions in many
countries brought it to an end in 1985 as otherwise happy
stations could not get dollars to pay for the
service.
At its peak, Música en
Flor used the same custom produced music as EZ Communications,
Bonneville and Kalamusic... we had a quality product for a
market never before offeredprogramming by way of syndication.
Syndication and Consulting
Música en Flor was the first ever attempt to syndicate radio
formats to Latin America. Custom consulting was also a part of
activities during the years between 1980 and 1985.
The Música en Flor
syndicated product included on-site consulting and resulted in
nearly 1,000,000 miles of travel in 5 years. Here is Jorge
Velando, GM of Radio Omega AM&FM at a meeting during one of
those trips to Lima, Perú.
Musica en Flor Operating Manual
A significant part of the Música
en Flor service was the complete operating guidance,
including consulting, voice tracks and IDs and equipment
selection.
Here is a sample of an operating manual for the format.
Click on the front
page to see the full document.
This material was fully customized by computer.
Miami Studios Here is the entrance to the Música en Flor studios in about
1982. A location used by a formal wear rental shop
was converted into production facilities; the
fitting room became the announce booth!
Most of the space was used for the 22,000 LP record
library and the several hundred tapes of custom
music. The library included the entire EZ
Communications Beautiful Music library as well as
thousands of albums brought from Europe and Latin
America.
Station Roster
Among the markets broadcasting
Música en Flor were:
La Paz,
Cochabamba, Sucre and Potosí, Bolivia
Tarapoto, Cuzco, Ica and Lima, Perú
Iquique, Coquimbo, Arica, Osorno, Valdivia, Valparaíso,
Punta Arenas, and Puerto Montt, Chile
Asunción, Paraguay.
Quito, Cuenca, Ambato, Riobamba and Guayaquil, Ecuador
Duitama, Bogotá, Cali, Manizales, Pasto, Cartagena,
Barranquilla, Cúcuta and Bucaramanga, Colombia
Caracas and Punto Fijo, Venezuela
Chitré, David and Panamá, Panamá
San José, Costa Rica (network)
Tegucigalpa, and San Pedro Sula, Honduras
San Salvador, El Salvador (network)
Guatemala City and Quetzaltenango, Guatemala
Monclova, Piedras Negras, Nogales, and Cd. Guzmán, México
Sto. Domingo and Santiago, Dominican Republic
San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Musica en Flor
Advertising
Música en Flor advertised in the magazines of each Latin
American nation’s broadcasters associations. The ad to the
left is
reproduced from "Antena" published by the Mexican Chamber of
the Radio and Television Industry (CIRT). This ad welcomed
new subscriber XHPZ in Ciudad Guzmán, Jalisco, México, to
the growing list of format syndication subscribers.
Click on the CIRT "Antena" logo for a complete issue of the
CIRT magazine. The CIRT is the largest and most active of
the Latin American broadcaster associations.
Another ad from the CIRT magazine, "Antena."
This is the cover letter for
several congratulatory letters from the Música en Flor
Panamá affiliate.
Click to see them in PDF form.
Chitré.
Panamá
To the
right is the ad for Stereo Presidente
in Chitré, Panamá when it went on the
air with Música en Flor.
Below the ad is a street near the radio station in
Chitré
From Chile to México, there were as many as 70 stations
using this syndicated easy listening format.
Audience Response Letters
This is the cover letter for several congratulatory letters from
the Música en Flor
Panamá affiliate.
Click to see them in PDF form.
Music Services
A new product,
based on U.S. and European pop hits, was launched in
1985... just as inflation and currency controls
destroyed the potential market for syndication in
Latin America. Interestingly, this product consisted
of a tape of the latest releases in Spanish and
English pop music, shipped every week. With the
advent of the Compact Disk, companies such as TM and
Radio Express would use this "HitDisk" concept very
advantageously in the future.
Computerization
The use of computers was a
key to Música en Flor. All sales material was
prepared using a daisy wheel typewriter adapted to
an Apple II, and the music library was maintaianed
on the system.
By 1981, a Comodore PET was used, and it can be seen
in one of the pictures above. It had Visicalc in a
ROM chip!
In 1983, a Victor 9000 (PC compatible) with a 10
megabyte Corvus hard disk that cost $2,900.
Demo Cassette
Click on the cassette icons to the right
to hear each side of the Música en Flor
demo from 1981.
The Música en Flor format was distributed
on Chrome tape cassettes, not reel tape,
because of shipping costs, customs duties, etc.
Demo
IE Stream
Demo
Firefox Stream
Scoped
Hour
IE Stream
Scoped Hour
Firefox Stream
NAB Speaker 1982
In 1982, I was invited to speak at the NAB
in Dallas as part of the Hispanic programming
session.
Read the presentation by clicking on the NAB graphic
to the left.
