Jazz FM (UK)

Jazz FM (UK)

Jazz FM, formerly known as jazzfm.com and ejazz.fm, is a radio station broadcasting on digital radio in the United Kingdom which predominantly plays jazz music, jazz standards as well as blues and soul music. The station also plays specialist programming in a wide variety of jazz disciplines. The station was originally run by The Local Radio Company from 6 October 2008 as part of a three-year licensing deal with GMG Radio, but is now run by Jazz FM Investments Ltd. The station as of 21 March 2011 broadcasts across Great Britain on the Digital One DAB ensemble. Prior to this date, the station broadcast on DAB ensembles in London, the West Midlands, the North West of England, West Central Scotland as well as free-to-air digital satellite via the Sky satellite platform from its intinal launch date and the Freesat satellite platform from 21 October 2008. The station launched on 6 October 2008 at 19:00 BST (18:00 UTC). It was also formerly available in South Wales and the Severn Estuary on DAB until 21 March 2011 when Jazz FM's national service launched, and the service could be heard in these areas again.

The station started off as a separate website named ejazz as an accompaniment to the now defunct 102.2 Jazz FM and 100.4 Jazz FM stations in London and the North West respectively. GMG Radio revamped the site in 2004 and in 2005 when the London Jazz FM station was replaced with 102.2 Smooth FM, the ejazz website adopted the Jazz FM name and moved to jazzfm.com. Jazzfm.com also took up DAB slots in Yorkshire, South Wales and the Severn Estuary to relay the Blue Room stream of smooth jazz and funk music from the website at a higher bitrate, which were left vacant by the defunct Smooth Digital radio station. GMG also launched jazzfm.com on free-to-air digital satellite via the Sky platform, but closed it down in 2006 to save money to re-invest into the website. The station also took spare slots when GMG Radio bought the Saga radio stations across the UK, but also sold jazzfm.com DAB slots to a number of buyers, including Leeds United A.F.C. and United Christian Broadcasters. In 2008, GMG made plans to relaunch Jazz FM in a move to encourage Ofcom to remove jazz commitments from the licences of 102.2 Smooth Radio and 100.4 Smooth Radio. The format change was denied but GMG promised to continue its plans to relaunch jazzfm.com as Jazz FM, including a three-year licensing deal with The Local Radio Company. In January 2009, The Local Radio Company placed the station up for sale. Richard Wheatly, former executive chairman of The Local Radio Company headed a consortium for a management buyout of the station and subsequently purchased the station for £1 in April 2009. He was also the CEO of the former Jazz FM between 1995 and 2002.