THE SMOOTH JAZZ RADIO BACKLASH CONTINUES

It’s more bad news for the Smooth Jazz radio industry as yet another smooth jazz formatted radio station drops the format. Jacksonville radio stations WJSJ (105.3FM) and WSJF (105. FM) have dropped their Smooth Jazz format over this past weekend and flipped to become the “Coast” 105.3 FM and 105.5 FM, playing rhythmic adult contemporary music. This now makes five smooth jazz radio stations in the past few weeks to switch formats. The others were located in Houston (KHJZ 95.7FM) , New York (WQCD 101.9M), Washington, D.C. (WJZW-FM), and Denver (KJCD 104.3FM).

According to Terrence Rodda, general manager of the two Jacksonville stations that simulcast the same broadcast, …”the change was simply a business decision made because the smooth jazz format didn’t have a big enough audience..” Oh wow – is this really big news? Smooth jazz radio formats have never had a really big audience to begin with. It’s always attracted a niche audience and the ratings were always considered decent but never huge in comparison to more popular formats. All the stations have made money – but they want more (of course). So now they are dropping one by one like flies. Or maybe you could just say that they are all copycatting each other. Face it, smooth jazz radio has been around for 25 years, commanding decent ratings, and now all of a sudden it’s just not working. I put the blame on the station owners as well as the bland programming. There is so much new and exciting music out there and all they could do is play the same old stuff over and over again. As a matter of fact, I’ll save this subject for another posting.

Just a few short months ago it was it was noted that the Smooth Jazz radio format continued to grow and thrive as one of radio's longest running formats in comparison to others that have come and gone. Other format such as "Jammin Oldies", "Arrow", "Jack" and "Movin" have come and gone in many cities where smooth jazz stations continued to be successful. In January of this year, Broadcast Architecture launched the Smooth Jazz Network, featuring smooth jazz artists Dave Koz, Kenny G, Norman Brown, Brian Culbertson, Paul Hardcastle and Ramsey Lewis as on-air hosts. So far the network has spread to 25 markets across the US and brand new stations have launched utilizing the network in Norfolk, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City and Albuquerque. Currently there are more than 50 commercial radio stations across the US playing smooth jazz.