94.7 The WAVE / KTWV-FM

I strongly dislike the new format. For over two decades this was the enclave of jazz musicians and vocalists, some of which were successful enough to cross over into pop, soul, funk, and so on. But the core of this station in those two decades was JAZZ. R&B has always found avenues, but modern (or «smooth») jazz needed that anchor. Especially on the west coast. The Wave was THE only southern California source to find an enjoy these artists, and find out about events and performances. Many artists got their foot in the door through this station. Even hosted some segments as DJ’s, with guests.
The current station format doesn’t play serious jazz. It plays a few vocalists and crossover artists, but you won’t hear Boney James, Grover Washington, Dave Koz, or The Rippingtons. Or Paul Hardcastle. Or Stanley Clarke. Because they don’t cross over into pop or R&B. So the new station owners feel that they aren’t «marketable» to the every day person. I guess sophisticated music isn’t of value anymore? What a shame.

I came home one day about a month ago and my wife was so excited. She had been the correct number caller into 94.7 Wave radio to win tickets to the Wave’s Soulful Christmas. She never wins anything, so this was a very big deal for her. We love the Wave and have been listeners for many years, even listening in rental cars on trips here before we moved. Being in the wholesale musical instrument business myself, and a being a working musician playing some smooth jazz it has always been great to hear the best in adult contemporary music on the Wave.
I have to say however I was disappointed beyond belief last week with the way the ticket situation was handled. first off, there was no communication until we initiated it to try to find out how to get the tickets. Many call were placed with no return, but finally to her credit, Noelle at the station contacted us.
The Wave makes it sound so good, that you will get free tickets to the concert, but only if your drive to their station in the middle of downtown Los Angeles to pick them up or send someone to the station with your ID to pick them up.
They refused to mail them to us.
They refused to have them at «will call».
Both of those things I believe to be a reasonable request and should be a standard procedure. It would seem to me the most logical procedure would be to email them to the winners. Works for millions of Ticketmaster tickets. If they can’t work any of those things out, there is some serious organizational deficiency.
Even after I explained we live a long distance out in the IE and it is incredibly difficult, especially with the short time frame the allocated, they still refused. Most of that short one week plus a couple of days time I am out of state on business. The only remotely possible time I could have gone, I had a Doctor appointment and subsequent tests in the OC and could not get there.
For those of us that work for a living, that policy presents a nearly impossible problem. Free tickets is a great sounding promo for them, makes it sound to the advertisers, the artists and the public like they are doing something great for their listeners, but unfortunately due to their ridiculous pickup policy all it has done for us is create a feeling of resentment.
For our part, we’ll just move our listening over to satellite radio and I’ll make sure I have my satellite radio account changed to cover other available devices we have. To all of you advertisers, we may or may not be important as an individual customer to your message, but now you can be 100% sure those ads will not be getting to us.
To the rest of you my advice would be don’t bother to ever call in, you won’t be able to get what they offer in a reasonable manner in my opinion.

I really do miss the smooth jazz. That was the only smooth jazz station in my area too. I hate that they are trying to transition to a more pop-​like sound. Most of the new songs they play now aren’t even considered true R&B… Barely any Rhythm… Hardly any Blues. What happened??? Truly hate what 94.7 is becoming.
MAROON 5 IS NOT R&B!!!

Seen Pat Prescott Sunday at Spaghettini for brunch and people in front of me was waving at her, not realizing that they were waving or speaking to Pat Prescott. She (Pat) was rude by saying hi ok bye keep moving keep moving due to her taking a picture w/​guest. Needless to say, I was a fan of hers until I seen her ture self. I will not be listening to The Wave. I get it… we all have our moments, but working w/​a popular radio station you have to stay professional regardless!!! #Rude

bring back the smooth jazz we «loyal fans» knew from 1985 – 2008
the flute they use to play the jingle with
stick with the tradition!
a trip a day to hawaii/​anywhere!
your killing us!
bring the tradition back!
«smooth jazz 94.7 ktwv los angeles… the wave!!!»

I happen to like the new format on The Wave. It’s not an R&B station, it’s an adult station that plays a mixture now of jazz, R&B, and old school. Since 92.3 decided to change it’s format from old school/r&b to rap, the only other stations where you can find adult r&b, old school and jazz is either KJLH or The Wave, KJLH doesn’t play a lot of jazz nor old school but more r&b.
I like a variety of music and I am happy to hear that The Wave is formatted now to play a variety of music. And best of all, Greg Mack (former DJ with 1580 KDAY-​a popular station for me and my friends when we were teenagers). And Frankie Ross (former DJ with KJLH) are DJ’s at The Wave. Both of these guys know a lot about music… especially r&b and jazz. I will say Frankie is probably more skilled with music knowledge. When he was a DJ on KJLH for many years, he would always play songs that I’ve never heard before and he came on late evenings just as he does now.
So 94.7 The Wave, I am happy about the move you have made with the format. It is a good thing for those of us that love r&b and old school music with a bit of jazz in the mix. Thank You! :)

I’ve trying to listen to this station for decades. They kill songs, playing their small library over and over… for years. A WAVE of repetitive nausea.

I remember The WAVE during the mid 80’s playing mostly New Age music; then came the 90’s and they started playing some smooth jazz (Boney James, David Sanborn) and some soft rock. The WAVE jocks like Don Burn, Amy Hiatt, China Smith, & Talaya were pretty good. Then CBS Radio bought the station & that’s when everything started to go downhill for this station. Commercialized music became their ‘play-​book’.
Although I heard KTWV launched «Wave Classics», an HD Radio format featuring older smooth jazz instrumentals no longer heard on the main station, on its digital HD2 sub-​channel.

94.7 The Wave is really bad now. I hate the new format of all R&B. They actually play the same songs every hour, all day long and it kills me to even keep listening to it. I believe it’s a recording that plays the same songs over and over throughout the day. What was the new owner/​s of this station thinking when they decided that they would only play R&B and no Jazz? I’m sick and tired of hearing Earth Wind & Fire or Sade EVERY HOUR! Wow! Ridiculous! I will delete this station from my presets and switch to the last real Jazz station in Los Angeles, which is K-​Jazz 88.1. Good riddance!

94.7 HD2 has the original smooth jazz format.

I remember the day the The Wave came into existence. No DJs and this new music I’ve never heard called New Age, I think the song was called Celestial Sodapop. I was intrigued and it was fresh. Every night I would go to sleep with Celestial Starstreams playing at midnight. They eventually got DJs and the music changed slightly to a more main stream feel with what would eventually be called Smooth Jazz and it was AWESOME!!. The Wave sent me the Playboy Jazz festival, a memory I will never forget and my entire music collection became everything The Wave played, from Metheny to Vollenwieder and then I moved away and missed it.
I just came back to visit LA and tuned into my old favorite and WHAT HAPPENED? It sounds like every other station now. Its like the Coast and every other vanilla station I’ve ever heard. This is another plain Jane top 40 station.

94.7 is like the played out ‘has been’ now.
If I wanted to listen to slow jams and R&B, I would obviously listen to The BEAT. This station was a minimum of a 5 star rating until it made the foolish decision to convert to R&B. I have officially deleted this garbage out of my radio selects. I think will have my CPA firm buy out a new radio programming station and make it into a smooth jazz station just because I am so put out by this change. Im sure I am not the only one wishing to put 94.7 out of their misery. You used to be great and now you will be a dim faded memory. Either you get with the program and bring back the music appropriate for businesses to play during the day, or you can face the music of the fat lady to eliminate you from the air.

I LOVE the WAVE. It reminds me of the old KBLX in the bay area. God, I hope that this station doesn’t go back to elevator music because of all of the complaints from the squares. This station is perfect. I heard Kiss of Life by Sade for the first time in years. It was raining outside and it set the mood. I listen to KBLX and KDAY that is it.

Sad they chjanged theyre format to R&B. 92.3 already plays alot of R&B. I really liked listening to the jazz when I got off of work it even was apart of my childhood growing up in Southern Cali. Plus they wearing out Latch by Sam Smith. SMH

I agree with all the other posts. I was a dedicated fan of 94.7 The Wave for many years. I even have some Wave CDs. It lost it’s Smooth Jazz vibe a few years ago and continues to disappoint. There is too much disco and other genres. I miss the relaxing sound of the wave while driving. Is there another station in LA like the old 94.7 the wave?

Im very upset that 94.7 The Wave has changed from smooth jazz to yet another R&B station. I listened faithfully since I was in my early 20’s and now Im in my FABULOUS 40’s and Im annoyed with the new format. I really am currently hating that stupid «Happy» song by Pharrell Williams. That song needs to stay in car commercials and in kids movies like its supposed to and NOT on regular radio where most of us can be annoyed by it. That song makes me so NOT happy!
So it looks like I’m going to have stay with SIRRUS/​XM even in my house now. Sad that is has come to this. Smh

As much as I love R&B music, I’m annoyed at the fact that the only smooth jazz station that has ever existed in the whole city of Los Angeles is gone! The sad part is that it didn’t just disappear all of a sudden. There were some R&B tracks here and there that played and then before you know it, it was only R&B! It’s not like the city of Los Angeles is short on stations that play R&B music; do they really need another one?
So now where am I going to listen to The Rippingtons? The Weather Channel? Psh! Even the Weather Channel doesn’t play jazz music anymore!

They could have changed their playlist, instead they changed their entire format.
It’s like KJLH now…
Pops listens to Jack FM, he was a loyal Wave listener for as long as I can remember. personally, I think it now appeals to a certain demographic, before it was much more versatile.
Bye…*waves*

I grew up listening to the wave, so I have fond, fond memories of it. I loved all the different types of jazz they played and discovered many artists I’ve come to love FROM listening to The Wave! It saddens me to see the direction that the station has gone in. First they let go of Keri Tombazian (an absolute GODDESS to listen to on the airwaves) and now they’re «Smooth R&B»?? Should’ve known there was something up when they started playing Robin Thicke’s «Blurred Lines» despite it’s harsh criticism and controversy. I hate to sound over dramatic here, but I guess that marks the end of an era. Time to look for another station to tune in to. I hear
plays a lot of stuff that The Wave did before they became more «Urban». Guess I’ll be tuning into them now and hope for the best. RiP The Wave — I’ll miss you.
EDIT: The fact the lady below my review wants to «twerk it» in front of her kids frightens me. A lot.

I’ve had 94.7 locked in on my radio for at least a decade. It’s a good escape from the crap played on most «contemporary» stations and a nice breakaway when my go-​to, KJLH, is playing something asinine. Elevator music kinda rocks sometimes…
I learned a lot about smooth jazz listening to this station over the years, however lament in the fact that cool songs of my teen years are now «adult contemporary». But now they’ve switched to «smooth R&B». Umm… no. I love R&B, but I listened to The Wave for jazz/​ac. Now given, they play some songs that KJLH has forgotten existed, but where am I supposed to get my Neil Diamond-​Barry Manilow-​Christopher Cross fixes? What’s wrong with playing Dave, Mindi, Norm, Kenny and friends along with After 7, Barry White, Stevie, Sade, Soul 2 Soul and others?
We can all play together, why separate the sandbox?