Smooth jazz radio,
counted.

1 · Terrestrial radio

A. Commercial stations, full-time smooth jazz — 7 operations

WJZA and WNSY simulcast in Atlanta and are counted as one operation. KJAV flipped in April 2026; its licensee is a ministry, and its commercial status should be read with that in mind.

B. Non-commercial full-power stations — 3 primary, 6 mixed

Bold: smooth jazz is the main format. The rest carry it inside a wider jazz, blues or urban schedule. Eight of the nine are licensed to universities, six of them historically Black institutions.

C. Low-power FM — 7 primary, 3 hybrid

D. HD Radio subchannels — 13

Digital sidebands of licensed FM stations, received on HD radios. The first three also feed an analogue FM translator; the rest are listed as affiliates by the Smooth Jazz Network or in station directories.

E. Left the format since 2020

Excluded after checking: WMBM (urban gospel), WVST (variety), WICR (jazz/classical), KSBR (AAA since 2022), WRMU (dropped smooth jazz in 2015), WGRV-LP (licence deleted 2014), KNIK (silent). KCSW, KTAL, WWVL and KSGR could not be matched to a licensed smooth jazz signal; the last two operate as online streams. Station formats change; corrections are welcome through the corrections page.

Outside the United States: 5 full-format stations in 31 countries checked

Over-the-air stations (FM, AM, DAB/DAB+, HD) outside the U.S. that air smooth jazz. Most jazz broadcasters abroad programme jazz broadly; they are listed separately. Stations that use “Smooth” as a brand for adult contemporary or easy listening (Smooth Radio UK, smoothfm Australia, Smooth FM Thailand and Kenya) are not smooth jazz stations and are excluded.

No qualifying terrestrial station was found in Ireland, Spain, Turkey, Israel, the Gulf states, Kenya, Ghana, New Zealand, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia or Jamaica; smooth jazz there is internet-only (see Digital radio). Some listings rest on a single source and are dated accordingly.

2 · Digital radio

205 digital smooth jazz outlets in 26 countries

Satellite, cable, network, app and internet outlets. Taken from the public panel pages of RadioWave Monitor, SmoothJazz.com and the Smooth Jazz Network, the operators’ own channel lists, and public station directories (radio-browser.info, OnlineRadioBox), keeping only streams verified as live and clearly named as smooth jazz. 85 of them appear on at least one published chart panel.

Panel key: RWGJ = RadioWave Groove Jazz panel page · SJC = SmoothJazz.com reporters page (week of 21 Sep 2026) · SJN = Smooth Jazz Network affiliate list. “DB” call signs are issued by a private association and have no standing with the FCC (REC Networks).

A floor, not a census: internet stations open and close weekly, and many publish no operator, location or launch date. None is estimated here. Some panel entries carry the name of a former FM station and are listed as internet streams because no current licence carries them.

3 · How airplay is counted

Five airplay charts, five different panels

Spin totals are not comparable across charts. Mediabase and Billboard measure a small, mostly terrestrial and satellite panel; RadioWave and SmoothJazz.com count dozens of internet outlets, so the same record carries far more spins there.

Billboard’s own spin counts sit behind its paid service. The thresholds above are from the Mediabase published chart, which supplies Billboard’s data. In November 2022 SmoothJazz.com reported that six to eight stations of the previous BDS panel of “just over a dozen” continued under Mediabase, and named WEIB, KUNV, KOAZ, WCLK, the Smooth Jazz Network and SiriusXM Watercolors. KOAZ has since left the format.

SmoothJazz.com, as the site describes itself

What the numbers show

Where a chart position is decided

• The published Mediabase panel is 13 stations wide.

  No song reached more than 13 stations in the week ending 5 September 2026. No. 1 averaged 17.3 plays per station; No. 30 averaged 8.5.

  Mediabase published chart, week ending 5 Sep 2026

• Of the named Billboard reporters, one is a full-time commercial smooth jazz station.

  WEIB. The others named in 2022 were non-commercial (KUNV, WCLK), satellite (Watercolors) and syndicated (SJN); KOAZ has left the format.

  SmoothJazz.com, November 2022; station records above

• Internet outlets outnumber terrestrial ones on the broad charts.

  68 of 83 outlets on the RadioWave panel page are digital. That chart’s No. 1 carried 519 spins on 46 stations in the week of 20 September 2026 — more than twice the Mediabase No. 1.

  RadioWave Monitor chart and panel pages

• The commercial terrestrial base has contracted.

  64 stations in 1989 and 43 in 1994 (M Street Journal, reported in Billboard, 1 April 1995); seven full-time commercial operations in September 2026. Country radio had 2,134 stations in February 2026.

  Billboard; Inside Radio/PrecisionTrak

Method

Public sources only. Terrestrial stations were identified from licence and format records (Wikipedia station pages and their citations, national regulators, RadioInsight, Inside Radio, RadioToday, station websites). Digital outlets come from published chart-panel pages, operators’ channel lists and public station directories. No private airplay reports, promoter data or subscriber services were used. Chart figures are quoted for the dates shown and change weekly. Compiled 22 September 2026. Station formats change; corrections are welcome through the corrections page.

Download: international terrestrial (CSV) · digital outlets (CSV) · SmoothJazz.com reporters (CSV)

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