How long has it been called AC?

[elevator_opratr]

How long has the term Adult Contemporary been used? I have a book that lists every song that charted # 1 on the AC chart, but I'm thinking to myself, back, say 25 years ago, it wasn't even called AC, was it?

Then what was that chart called back then? "Easy Listening?" What was Barbara Streisand, Neil Diamond, Dionne Warwick, etc. called back, in say, 1980?

 

[westlife]

> How long has the term Adult Contemporary been used? I have a
> book that lists every song that charted # 1 on the AC chart,
> but I'm thinking to myself, back, say 25 years ago, it
> wasn't even called AC, was it?
>
> Then what was that chart called back then? "Easy Listening?"
> What was Barbara Streisand, Neil Diamond, Dionne Warwick,
> etc. called back, in say, 1980?

Stations that played a mix of contemporary hits and standards, designed to appeal to an adult audience, were mostly called MOR ("Middle Of the Road").

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[John1]

The forerunner format name for a mix of soft pop hits and MOR in the '70's was "Contemporary MOR".

 

[semoochie]

> The forerunner format name for a mix of soft pop hits and
> MOR in the '70's was "Contemporary MOR".
>
I started hearing the industry term "Progressive MOR" in the early 1970s, for MORs that had added soft rock product to their mix. This quickly became a personality based Adult Contemporary before the mid-70s. A few years later, Top 40s began softening and becoming another type of Adult Contemporary. Billboard lagged behind the name for several years and continued to use the moniker "Easy Listening".

 

[westlife]

AC = "Easy Listening"?

For what it's worth, both my 60-something father and 40-something female supervisor at work refer to AC stations as "Easy Listening". This came up today when we were discussing what station to play, if we got a radio in the office. My supervisor said "we'd have to keep it on an Easy Listening station", while a coworker my age (mid 20s) said "yeah, like 98.3" (the local AC station) and another coworker in his early 30s referred to the format as "Soft Rock" (what that AC station calls itself). And meanwhile, my dad mentioned something like "I was at the doctor's office and they had the radio on that Easy Listening station... 106.7 FM" (WLTW in New York City, which is anything but "Lite" these days!).

So while the industry may use the term Adult Contemporary, my anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that anyone over the age of 40 refers to it as "Easy Listening" -- perhaps because 15 to 20 years ago, they didn't even notice the difference as TRUE Easy Listening stations began to gradually shift towards AC, often adding vocal tracks and removing instrumentals so slowly that the complete change took years.
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[radionut987]

> > The forerunner format name for a mix of soft pop hits and
> > MOR in the '70's was "Contemporary MOR".
> >
> I started hearing the industry term "Progressive MOR" in the
> early 1970s, for MORs that had added soft rock product to
> their mix. This quickly became a personality based Adult
> Contemporary before the mid-70s. A few years later, Top 40s
> began softening and becoming another type of Adult
> Contemporary. Billboard lagged behind the name for several
> years and continued to use the moniker "Easy Listening".

The format that eventually became adult contemporary was also referred to as "chicken rock".

 

[radio124]

> > > The forerunner format name for a mix of soft pop hits
> and
> > > MOR in the '70's was "Contemporary MOR".
> > >
> > I started hearing the industry term "Progressive MOR" in
> the
> > early 1970s, for MORs that had added soft rock product to
> > their mix. This quickly became a personality based Adult
> > Contemporary before the mid-70s. A few years later, Top
> 40s
> > began softening and becoming another type of Adult
> > Contemporary. Billboard lagged behind the name for
> several
> > years and continued to use the moniker "Easy Listening".
>
> The format that eventually became adult contemporary was
> also referred to as "chicken rock".
>
When I first started getting R and R in September 1980 they called their chart Pop/Adult. Shortly thereafter, probably 1981 they changed it to A/C.

 

[valkyrie777]

AC = "Easy Listening" and before?

I think that even before it was "Easy Listening" it was known as "Middle Of The Road", hence the term "MOR".