Miami 1982 "Música en Flor"
Syndication for Latin America
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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.