Let's get to the bottom line. It's time to turn the radio off. OK, you don't have to turn it off. You can flip it to your local adult contemporary or easy listening station, where you will get the same songs you've been hearing, but they are not being passed off as smooth jazz. Elizabeth Ware elaborated on the reasons that some of the recently revived smooth jazz radio stations were not a Cause for Celebration in her June Perspectives editorial. In July, I joined so many people in the contemporary/smooth jazz community in mourning the loss of Orlando's WLOQ – a station that had been in the format since the late 80s and was one of the few stations left that was actually owned by human beings until they decided to sell to a big corporation earlier this year.

Right after Chicago's heritage station, WNUA, flipped formats, one of their most well known staffers, Rick O'Dell, put on a station that had a weaker signal and lower budget but ran a pretty decent music mix. About six months later it morphed into something else entirely, dropping most of the original instrumentals and adding a load of pop vocals, 20th century instrumentals, and covers. They had affiliated with the Smooth Jazz Network, which delivers a prepackaged version of the format that presents the exact music mix that caused ratings to drop and listeners under age 55 to abandon the format in droves.  How many times do you want to hear “Easy” by the Commodores in 2011? How many times do you want to hear an easy listening version of “Easy” even if it's by Paul Jackson Jr.? (Sorry PJJr. I love you, I've seen you fire it up on stage so many times, but this could put a speed freak to sleep.)  Then press releases started pouring in that Detroit, home of another heritage station that left the format, was getting a new smooth jazz station that would run the Smooth Jazz Network. Both the Chicago and Detroit stations had run this company's programming in their previous incarnations and look where that got them – in a ratings hole with their remaining listeners in an unmarketable demographic. Remember that old axiom, “If you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you're getting”?

When WLOQ went off the air they reincarnated as an online station that played the same music the on-air station played and used a lot of their personalities, many of whom had been in the market for years. They were still local, if not actually live. Clear Channel undercut that rather quickly by opening up a marginal signal and putting Smooth Jazz Network programming on it. Then, insult to injury, they changed the call letters to WLOQ.  This short-circuited the online station's ability to broadcast or use the call letters. While WLOQ was only a shadow of it's original self they still played more recent instrumentals and less pop vocals than the traditional format, and they were tied in to the community on multiple levels. Now Orlando gets a canned format with personalities who are voiceover professionals from California instead of local air personalities.

What is sad is that the fans in these markets seem to be celebrating. Is something mediocre always better than nothing at all. If you were really hungry and someone handed you a slice of moldy bread would you grab it and wolf it down when the restaurant down the street had real food and all you had to do was walk one more block?

Walk that extra block. There are too many internet stations offering excellent music presented by people who care about the music and you, the listener. A  lot of them are programmed by people who worked a long time in the corporate radio version of the format and are now spreading their wings and using their passion and knowledge to play music for you, not for Wall Street. Many are programmed by passionate fans who are putting their time and money into sharing the music with you. You can find any type of  mix from traditional smooth to disarmingly eclectic, all of them human, exciting and enjoyable in their own right. Internet radio receivers for your car are right around the corner, but for now you can spoil yourself by listening on your mobile devices and at home. When you hear all of the excellent music that has been coming out recently, and all the songs you missed over the last 15 years because they didn't “test well,' you are going to be too spoiled to put up with a watered down, slowed down set of musical wallpaper that bores you to death and hurts the image of the music and the people who create it. It's time to evolve and become exciting again. The music is there and you can hear it any time. Turn off your radio. It's time to move forward.