Around the country, FM radio stations have been dropping the Smooth Jazz format -- including stations in New York City, Philadelphia, and this week Chicago and San Francisco. By doing so, radio stations are abandoning hundreds of thousands of listeners who love Smooth Jazz music as part of their day.Fortunately, Internet radio offers a solution: Welcome to SanFranSmoothJazz.com!
We're keeping the Smooth Jazz format alive and well in the Bay Areaw. And, in fact, in some ways, it's better than ever. Compared to the FM version of Smooth Jazz, you'll see several changes (and hopefully you'll think they're improvements):
- We've got nine different channels of music, focusing on different styles, instruments, and moods. (And we have more channels coming soon, including a 24/7 channel dedicated to Bay Area-based artists!)
- We'll play far fewer commercials: Instead of 8-12 minutes per hour of spots, we'll typically have less than 2 minutes per hour.
- You can customize the artists we play on your stream via the "Artist list" tab.
- You can skip songs you don't like.
- We have comprehensive "Now playing" information, including title, artist, album, composer, year of release, and a link to the Amazon page for the CD that's playing.
- Deeper playlists -- thousands of songs instead of just a few hundred.
- A greater emphasis on actual jazz artists (i.e., less "pop adult contemporary").
SanFranSmoothJazz is a work in progress. Let us know if you like it... and how we can make it better. Just use the "Comments" section below or the "Shoutbox" on our homepage.
And thanks for listening to SanFranSmoothJazz.com!
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P.S. How to listen to Internet radio in your car: Currently, this requires either an iPhone or a BlackBerry Bold, Curve, or Storm. (Support for more phones is coming soon. And of course in a couple of years from now, this will be a lot easier.) Just download an app called "FlyCast," select "AccuRadio" from the webcaster guide, and select "Jazz" as your format. (AccuRadio is our sister website; you'll get very similar channels to ours, albeit not identical.) As long as your smartphone is in your car: Voila! You've got Internet radio in your car!
