Broadcasters use bumper music to fill dead air between programming and commercial breaks -- to hold the audience and prevent it from switching stations. Radio and TV producers also rely on bumper music to connect unrelated scenes, characters and story lines and to keep viewers and listeners interested.
Bumper music is available in all musical genres, including jazz, new age, world, electronica, rock, blues, pop, country and hard rock. Bumper music can be excerpts from famous songs or expressly produced by musicians as bumper music. From piano classics and electric-guitar sounds to music with a '60s or R&B vibe, bumper music is available in a seemingly endless range of sounds to fit the mood and style of any broadcast.
The long-running "Seinfeld" series featured some of the most recognizable bumper music in television history. The show's producers used the familiar tunes to transition in and out of scenes and commercial breaks -- even to signal the comings and goings of certain characters such as Elaine and Kramer. "Seinfeld's" bumper music became so recognizable that you could hear it in one room and know it was playing on the TV in another.
Type "bumper music" into your Web browser and you will find several forums in which people are asking about the bumper music on various TV and radio programs. Catchy bumper music can draw in an audience and keep it listening. PBS, National Public Radio (NPR) and several popular news shows have spawned bumper music fans with their use of edgy or sophisticated transitional tunes.