While the Smooth Jazz format has disappeared from much of the country, it is having a minor renaissance in central Washington State.
Jacobs Radio Programming launched “Smooth Jazz 102.3” on 93.5 KWDR Royal City and 102.3 K272ED Kennewick on Wednesday. Owner Jeff Jacobs told the Tri-City Herald, “Radio listeners have missed jazz on the radio. This is a station that will serve the educated, mature, affluent and professional adult between the ages of 45 and 75 who enjoys and can afford the finer things in life.” The station is utilizing programming from Broadcast Architecture’s Smooth Jazz Network.
KWDR/K272ED’s launch follows Alexandria Communications debut of “Smooth Jazz 94.5” KZIU-HD3/K233CJ College Place/Walla Walla in March.
Too bad it can’t have a minor renaissance in southwestern Washington where it’s needed the most.
Guess it’s just not “trendy” enough for the neverending-party-head-banger hipster faction south of the DMZ. Probably explains why the format didn’t last too long on KRVO. There is, of course, the Ibiquity stream on KKCW but the audio quality is terrible, the result of using bitrates too low for such content.
Or maybe it’s just a conspiracy against those of us who actually want to hear something quiet for a change. Yeah, that’s it.