94.1 WSJT

[Mike Sheridan]

What are your thoughts about WSJT? A friend of mine asked me and from what I'm hearing they play more A/C than most Smooth Jazz stations. I understand they do well in the ratings so I assume this is what the Tampa market wants....?

 

[coolaid213]

I'd rather make out with the barrel of a shotgun than listen to SJT. I understand that their numbers are more than respectable... which only reaffirms my general lack of faith in mankind.

With that said, they could be a great station. They have great personalities, namely, Al Santana. But their playlist is absolutely atrocious. It's not so much what they play, its what they don't play. During daytime hours, you can expect to hear the same 20 songs several times over, and only a fraction of those tracks could be labeled as "smooth jazz". For a market that once had one of the BEST contemporary jazz stations, its sad to see what will pass as acceptable. I honestly want to know who IS listening to this station, so I can try my hardest to avoid them on the street.

Cedric

 

[MisterNews]

They don't actually play any Classic Jazz at all. It's all basically elevator music. In nearly 12 years here I have never actually met anyone who admitted to listening to 'SJT, so they must be VERY good at targeting diary-keepers and getting enough AQH to obtain the (consistent) numbers that they do. I guess the main target is upper-middle-class blacks, and 45-54 y.o. whites who never had the slightest musical taste anyway. It really is inoffensive music to the point of being almost offensive. God forbid they should play any Coltrane or Beiderbecke or Tatum or Monk or ANYTHING even remotely out of the mainstream Megalomart muzak world. They don't have to emulate the Jazz Revisited (NPR) show or anything, just perhaps sneak in a few tunes from the real world of Jazz. But that might scare off the upper-middle-class musical-taste-challenged listener base.

Your Trip-A-Day station... say it with me: "tripaday", it's one word. Your tripaday station. Say wut?
Give me more Kenny G, Earth Wind & Fire, and Simply Red, dammit! Now THAT'S jazz.

 

[radiodork]

I have never actually met anyone who admitted to listening to 'SJT

The only people I know who admit to listening to SJT on a regular basis are doctors and the offices their patients sit in. It's essentially "EZ" listening, much like 107.3 WWBA was in the 80s or WDUV in the 90s. Judging by the 12+ success of WDUV the past decade or so, there's enough people 50 or older in this market who don't want offensive music.

As for where to find "real" jazz, check out 89.7 overnights. 88.5 also occasionally has jazz or R&B/blues shows.

 

[MisterNews]

As for where to find "real" jazz, check out 89.7 overnights. 88.5 also occasionally has jazz or R&B/blues shows.

Or channels 70, 72 and 74 on XM.
As traditional broadcast radio increasingly fails the American listening public, alternatives start to look better and better. What a shame that this powerful medium has abdicated its role in our society and is accelerating toward irrelevance. :'(

 

[AnotherCat]

All the Smooth Jazz stations that are consulted by Broadcast Architecture are going more toward an eclectic mix of R&B based songs that crossed over to A/C in the 80s and 90s and instrumental covers of even older songs. It's kind of like oldies meets "Jack-Lite" with some of the oldies being instrumentals. It creates some real train wrecks too. The Baltimore station played Fergie into Brubecks "Take 5"

 

[FiveStar]

As for where to find "real" jazz, check out 89.7 overnights. 88.5 also occasionally has jazz or R&B/blues shows.

Or channels 70, 72 and 74 on XM.
As traditional broadcast radio increasingly fails the American listening public, alternatives start to look better and better. What a shame that this powerful medium has abdicated its role in our society and is accelerating toward irrelevance. :'(

I'm not any great fan of WSJT either, but one lesson that I've learned first hand is that people will always SAY they want a station to play "real" jazz. However, there is no quicker to go broke running a radio station than to play real jazz. What people say they want and what they will listen to are not always the same.

 

[MisterNews]

I'm not any great fan of WSJT either, but one lesson that I've learned first hand is that people will always SAY they want a station to play "real" jazz. However, there is no quicker to go broke running a radio station than to play real jazz. What people say they want and what they will listen to are not always the same.

Well, yes, there's not huge money in real Jazz programming, but gee, it would be nice if one of the mega-lo-mart radio companies decided it was worth serving both that dedicated segment of audience who would listen, and perhaps educating other folks about this type of music. Edu-tainment...what a concept.

Here's a link to one of the great (defunct) jazz stations, WRVR:
http://www.southstation.org/wrvr/index.htm

They had a 1.1 share (21st in NYC) summer of 1977, about where CBS-FM and WADO are now. Unfortunately music like that would probably garner a 0.01 in this market, although you never know. Perhaps really good programming would reveal a silent but growing cadre of listeners with taste....

 

[Horns]

Well, looking at the ratings, it seems SJT is doing pretty darn well. They have good demos and a really professional staff.

 

[RMarino]

As for where to find "real" jazz, check out 89.7 overnights. 88.5 also occasionally has jazz or R&B/blues shows.

Or channels 70, 72 and 74 on XM.

XM 74 is blues. But also don't forget XM 71 Watercolors. It reminds me a lot of what used to be 102.5 The Wave back in the day.

As for WSJT's success, I believe a lot of it has to do with the fact that it serves as the default adult urban station for the market. If Tampa were to have a station like Orlando's Star 94.5 (which is very good by the way) then WSJT would not be as successful.

 

[John Waywoods]

Yes, 94.5 is a great station. They are doing VERY well in O Town's ratings. I am surprised SJT hasn't made the jump.

 

[Parttimer]

And Cox owns 94.5... it's has always baffled me that they let the Point muddle around at the bottom of the pack and don't put this format on in Tampa.