This is actually the board for easy listening. So-called "soft AC" stations have another board. I told the people in charge the name of this board should be changed, but they never did it.
It could be that the administrators decided to group all three genres into one board since much of the music across the three formats (easy listening, soft AC, and adult standards) already overlap quite a bit. As it's been mentioned before, people equate the term "easy listening" with a multitude of different types of music. To me, "easy listening" is synonymous with the primarily instrumental-based "beautiful music" format that was prevalent on radio for many years, but to others, "easy listening" might include more vocals, or be entirely vocally-based. I'm surmising the term "soft AC" for this particular board is meant to refer to the traditional soft AC sound which was on the air 20-25 years ago...not the format as it is today after evolving for two decades. It seems that many of the newer traditional soft AC stations which have come on the air in the last couple of years, such as WFEZ in Miami, are classified as "soft AC" along with the current version of soft AC, which bares little resemblance to its predecessor. I believe it would be best if the new traditional soft AC stations would adopt an entirely new format name so as to differentiate it between today's version of soft AC. If by "soft AC" you mean the traditional soft AC variety...then I wouldn't say it would require a separate board. The soft AC format was alternately known as "vocal easy listening" back during its earlier years (and to some extent today), so in that sense...I feel it would be acceptable to consolidate the three formats into just one board.
