atwater kent said:
The audience for real jazz is simply too small to build a viable Arbitron cume that the managment could monetize with advertising. That, and real jazz fans hate smooth jazz. There is no connection. There would be no cross-cuming.
"Real" jazz is far too "in your face" for most smooth jazz listeners.
And while I want to hear jazz from 1920-1940 included, i know better than to even hope this would ever fly.
I think jazz has about 5 more genres than any station would be willing to play.
Like rock, jazz needs a descriptive adjective.
Classic jazz to me means Bix Beiderbeck, Cab Calloway, Jimmie Noone, and Fletcher Henderson.
I'm sure this is not what the original poster was thinking of.
Their idea of classic jazz is different, probably thinking 1940-1970.
And that too, would offend the "smooth jazz" listeners now satisfied by existing formats.
Unless a station really wanted splinter their audience into segments with different vintages and genres, they could not do justice to a
"classic jazz" format. Too many people have musical blinders on. They don't listen actively, they half listen, until something comes along
that does not suit their taste, then they tune away.