To "test" records and say "we know what's marketable" is to assume that the "we" knows more about what the "us" wants than "us" knows. - Anonymous comment on Sean Ross' Edison Media Research blog

You, the fan, are the "us."  The corporate broadcasters who say you will only accept instrumental music if it is watered down with a heavy dose of pop songs and oldies, and that you don't want to hear anything except relaxing background music, are the "them."  If you don't like what they are serving up they will just tell you that everyone but you is fine with it.  You aren't the "average listener" so take what is given or go away.  Why?  Because you wanted more Peter White and Rippingtons, and less Celine Dion and Kool and the Gang.  If they aren't going to listen to you it's time for you to quit listening to them.  Don't worry about loyalty.  Very few smooth jazz stations are anything but a transmitter delivering syndicated programming.  Your local heroes and heroines haven't had control of their playlists for years, and now most of them have been given the pink slip and sent on their way.  Even longstanding ratings winners like 20-year WNUA veteran Rick O'Dell and KKSF Program Director Ken Jones have been escorted out of the building by security guards as budget cuts deepen and automation becomes even more widespread.  There are a few things happening to the left of the dial, the noncommercial sector.  But as for the type of radio that kept you company for most of your life - it's over. 

Gone the way of vinyl albums, typewriters, videotape, and rabbit ear TV antennas.  Even those things may bring back a nostalgic tweak, but eventually the technology that displaced them got cheaper and easier to use and it was time to move on.  After a few days of getting used to the newness and learning their way around it, most people just wonder why they hesitated in the first place.  Your music is on the Internet now, and it's time to go exploring.  When you hear what is actually available you will wonder how you ever settled for such a watered down version of the music you love.

Those of us who spent a large part of our lives in radio sometime assume that everyone knows how this transition from companionship and entertainment to a computer spewing out the same songs over and over again happened, but that isn't really the case.  I see e-mail blasts from musicians asking people to call their local station and request a song, when in reality, the chances of a person being there to answer the phone are slim, and stations quit taking requests years ago.  The corporate office dictates the playlist, usually with the help of a consultant and a music research company.  The local program and music directors "implement" it.  Requests aren't even a factor, and acting on one could put jobs in jeopardy.  Deviating from the playlist is the quickest way to be shown the door.  As for the DJ being there to answer the phone, chances are you are hearing a sound file, a pre-recorded voice that has been placed between or over the songs on the hard drive.  It could have been recorded hours ago by a person hundreds of miles away.  There are several excellent books that cover the history of this transition in great detail.  I recommend “Something In The Air” by Marc Fisher as a good starting point.  This is a more superficial version, explained by a radio person who survived numerous ownership changes and corporate staff cuts until my number came up and automation came knocking on my office door too.

Radio used to be the place to go to hear music, keep up with music, find out about the musicians, and be a part of a community that surrounded the music.  The excitement and connection were created by the people who went on the air, then called DJs (now air personalities).  These DJs lived in your hometown and cared about you, your city, and the music.  They sat in the studio and played the music their listeners wanted to hear, talked to them like they were friends, answered the phone, and even took requests.  The people who worked at your favorite station showed up at clubs and concerts and hung out with the listeners.  As they were out and about they watched, listened, and talked to people so they could be in tune with local tastes and trends.  That is the version of radio that people remember. but it ended when consolidation began.  The ending wasn't abrupt.  There was a period where big companies bought out smaller companies.  Then bigger ownership groups bought out the big groups.  Then even bigger groups bought out those groups.  Soon there were several companies that controlled the majority of US radio stations. 

Several things happened as these corporations got bigger.  They ran up a lot of debt and had to shift their focus away from the local community and toward investment bankers and Wall Street.  You don't take risks with multimillion-dollar properties, and when big money is at stake, everything becomes a risk.  Control of playlists was centralized because it was risky to have a bunch of people all over the country choosing the music their stations would play.  A new level of executives took that job over and moved control to the home offices.  New music became a definite risk because there is no way to be sure that people will like a song they haven't heard before.  The safe thing to do is quit playing new music.  Stations that previously added 2-3 new songs a week began to add only 2-3 new songs a month at the most.  There is also the fear that someone might change the station if they hear older songs that they are not already totally familiar with so the safest thing to do is only play a small group of songs over and over again.  The way to find these songs is to take short clips of songs that have been played a lot over the years and ask groups of people to rate them, and then get rid of all but the songs with the highest scores.  Then a few months later you take another group of people, ask them to rate the songs and cut the list down further by removing the lower scoring songs.  It's like reducing a sauce when you are cooking.  The longer the process lasts, the less liquid there is.  If you keep it on the flame too long, you just have a small sticky clump of residue left.  That's where we are now. 

That explains where the music went, but where did the people go?  Cutting the payroll is an obvious way to raise the bottom line.  Salaries, benefit packages, and bonuses are one of the biggest profit eaters out there, right?  By the late 90s, live humans were starting to disappear.  DJs used to physically push a button to start each song, commercial, and anything else that ran between the songs.  After the technology was developed that allowed a station to put their music library and commercials on a hard drive and run a program that played them automatically, having a person sit in the room and just talk four times an hour was no longer cost-efficient.  Voice tracking allowed the air personality to pre-record all their talk breaks and place them between the songs to make it sound like they were actually live in the studio.  You can pre-record an entire show in less than an hour, even a half hour on a "more music less talk" station.  It doesn't even have to be done at the station.  Someone across the country can upload their tracks in no time.  Stations got rid of their overnight people first, then evenings, and in some cases, middays.  Companies developed stables of voice-track talent who would record shows for stations all over the country.  Syndicated programming made it easy to let go of even more people.  Syndication used to be limited to specialty shows that ran on weekends, then Delilah's adult contemporary evening show was such a success that other syndicators started offering content to fill full weekday slots.  Syndicators now also offer 24/7 programming services.  A local station can operate with no live humans in the studio.  Oh, and, most of the syndicated programming is voice-tracked.  Nobody is sitting in a studio talking to you.  It's a sound file on a computer somewhere hundreds of miles away. 

Smooth Jazz was a sitting duck for syndication and voice tracking.  It is considered a background music format that focuses on relaxation instead of entertainment, so there is no need for high profile personalities.  All you need is a soothing voice to remind people of the call letters a few times and hour.  As a matter of fact, since it is background music the listeners won't notice or care if that soothing voice lives in the same area they do.  As of now, 36 smooth jazz stations are running the Smooth Jazz Network, a full-time syndicated, prepackaged version of the format.  Most of the remaining stations are using the Network for large segments of their programming, with Dave Koz and Ramsey Lewis replacing expensive drive-time talent, and other stations keeping a drive-time shift local and using the network for midday, evening, and overnight programming.  These people all sound just fine, but unless you live in San Francisco or L.A. they don't live where you do, they don't have a "feel" for the vibe that your hometown has, and you're not going to run into them at a concert, much less the grocery store.  The belief that people don't like instrumental music is influencing their playlist too.  There are lots of vocals, mostly adult contemporary oldies, or cover versions of oldies.  Simply Red doing the Moody Blues, Michael McDonald doing Motown, somebody doing an R&B version of the Beatles' "If I Fell" and James Taylor's “Shower The People.”  The songs might be pretty much OK but it's not what a smooth jazz listener comes in to hear.  It's like a country station suddenly deciding to play AC/DC because the Guitar Hero game got popular.

Is there totally no hope for radio?  One never knows.  The big companies are bleeding money and losing listeners.  Stock prices for most of the major groups have dropped to under a dollar a share.  The Biggie - Clear Channel - is shedding properties and laying off workers as fast as they can print out the severance paperwork.  This new political climate could at least nudge a turning of the tide that could bring small companies and local owners back into the fray.  That is speculation, and it will be a long time coming if at all.  If it does happen, then you, as a listener, need to be aware of the best that your genre of choice has to offer so you don't end up settling again.  Or worse, believing that "less" is really all there is.  Fergie? Beyonce? Linda Ronstadt? Pussycat Dolls? Phil Collins? Lite cover songs that sound like a dentist's office circa 1965? That's not it. Head for the Internet and hear what is really out there. Support the ones who give you what you want to hear and be part of the musical renaissance that is right around the corner.