Smooth Jazz in Cleveland is still an option for those of us who are disappointed with the latest radio options available to us. Since the lovers of the Smooth Jazz format were scorned by the new People Meter rating system (which refused to count us, in my opinion), we have been relegated to listening online at the station’s website, http://wnwv.northcoastnow.com/listen-live/ or with the WunderRadio app available for your iPhone or iPod Touch (with WiFi), or with an HD radio (which is still way too expensive).
Listening online is still the best option in that you can merely go to the website and let it play for as long as you’re on the computer. It works well as background music while at work. There may be an issue, however, with the quality of the stream as it gets interrupted often on a Windows computer and Internet Explorer (unless someone else has had a better experience), and while there have been moments of good feeds, overall it has been buggy. There are no known issues going through my Mac computer and Firefox at my residence. There were issues earlier this year where the advertising on the site was loud and interrupted the broadcast without warning, but that has since been corrected. The great thing about the online broadcast is that there is a lot of continuous music and not many commercials.
The WunderRadio app seems to be the best app available for your iPhone or iPod Touch to listen to online radio now (it has a modest price of $6.99, but it is considerably more comprehensive in the number of stations available). Pocket Tunes does not seem to work anymore for some stations the way it used to. WunderRadio pulls in The Wave just fine. It is my alternate method of listening when the work computer stream is not working well.
If the HD radio ever comes down in price, I will consider getting one, but with the available options to listen to Smooth Jazz at this time, as well as other radio feeds through iTunes and other outlets, I will keep up the effort to enjoy my favorite music and look forward to the day when Smooth Jazz returns to mainstream radio.
Melvin Gaines 