Jazz FM Plans To Relaunch On DAB
Friday, February 29, 2008
Following the shock announcement that GCap’s theJazz DAB station will close at the end of next month, Guardian Media Group Radio has made a surprise announcement that it plans to relaunch Jazz FM on DAB in London and the north west. A relaunch is hoped for later this year subject to agreement from regulator Ofcom.
Since GMG Radio rebranded Jazz FM as Smooth FM in 2005, followed by a subsequent change to Smooth Radio, broadcasting purely pop music, the Jazz FM brand has kept running as a streamed jazz website where it has attracted significant online traffic.
In a statement GMG Radio CEO John Myers said: “We have always carried on with Jazz FM online but we now hope that the gap left by theJazz will enable us to win an increased audience to this new service. DAB has come a long way in recent years and we are confident that Jazz FM has a promising future on the digital platform.”
See the April issue of Jazzwise for in-depth news of all of these developments as well as Stuart Nicholson’s opinion column and Jazzwise readers letters.