FAQ

It’s impossible to offer a music programme that is to every listener’s taste. This is particularly true of music programming. That’s why we rely very heavily on audience research. What we want to know is which music styles appeal to the majority of our listeners, which are very polarising, and which cause listeners to switch stations. The majority of listeners prefer jazz standards, blues and soul, as well as modern yet melodic jazz performances. However, Dixieland, New Orleans and very old recordings are polarising.

As radio providers, we face the challenge of putting together a music schedule that is sufficiently popular with the audience to justify the money that has been invested in it. We, too, are measured according to our audience share and our reach. Special programming would make some listeners switch off if they didn’t like that particular style of music.

Radio Swiss Jazz is a public radio station funded by the license fee and owned and operated by SRG SSR. As such, one of its tasks is to support the Swiss music industry and to provide it with a platform.  The station fulfils this part of its remit by ensuring that 50% of the music we play originates from Switzerland. Of course, when selecting Swiss songs, we make sure that each one fits in with our musical format, and that the recording meets our quality standards. It is also important to us to play a broad repertoire of Swiss productions, and thus enable our listeners to explore the diversity of Swiss jazz music.

«CH» indicates that the piece played has a link to Switzerland. This may relate to the performer or the composer.

We play a very large number of compositions and standards from the 1920s to 1950s, but often use newer performances. This is because of the poor recording quality of older records.

There are different reasons for delays and changes to the programme. These are generally technical in nature. The music schedule is amended at 4.00 a.m. every morning, so that the timings are all correct once more.

There is no problem with recording as long as it is for your own use only.

These excerpts cannot be any longer for copyright reasons.

We’re always happy to receive non-binding suggestions in writing at the email address info@radioswissjazz.ch. Owing to the large number of requests and tips, we cannot respond to all the enquiries that we receive.

We do not offer a requests show. As part of our station philosophy, our music producers regularly select new tracks for inclusion in our schedule.

The number of sound storage media orders via our playlist and delivery by corresponding trade partners has fallen significantly in recent years. In addition, an increasing number of titles in our range are no longer available on physical sound storage media. The detailed information on the titles and albums on our website (including label and order number details) are so comprehensive that available sound storage media can be directly ordered from online retailers.
At the same time, the number of music download providers has significantly increased in recent years. We have therefore decided not to favour a particular supplier by including a direct link.

For copyright reasons, we are unfortunately unable to make copies of the tracks we play, even if they are no longer available.

You can listen to our programmes using the “PlaySRF” app on an iPhone, iPad, Android smartphone or tablet. The app is available in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

To listen to our station in the car, you need a DAB+ car radio, or a car radio with internet reception. In Switzerland, more and more vehicles are being equipped with DAB+ radios. There are also various options for retrofitting VHF radios with DAB+ technology. Please ask your dealer or garage mechanic. Please note that our station is available via DAB+ in cars only in Switzerland and in border areas of neighbouring countries. For more information, please visit www.dabplus.ch.

The best thing is to do an automatic station search on your radio, which will update the list of all available stations. It sometimes helps to change the location of the radio whilst the station search is running.

Our station is not broadcast via FM, but rather on the digital DAB+ network. With DAB+, stations are not allocated a frequency in the conventional sense. After an automatic station search on your radio, you’ll find us under the name «Swiss Jazz+».

We are aware of the problem. When updates are carried out to the operating systems of smartphones and tablets, all app providers need a certain amount of time to update their apps accordingly. This is unfortunately also the case with us and is unavoidable.

Our iPhone app will also work on your iPad, but to find the app itself, you will have to remove the «iPad» filter in the App Store.

In view of the very rapid pace of technical progress, a gradual increase in streaming quality is likely in the medium term, but no definite plans have yet been made. Improving streaming quality means that we will need more bandwidth for each station, and that means much higher costs. However, only a small proportion of our listeners – those with the corresponding hi fi equipment – will be able to benefit from the marginal improvement in sound quality. Our 96kbps AAC+ stream offers a slightly better-quality sound, if you would like to try it.

From 2016, in order to receive our programme via Eutelsat Hotbird satellite, you need a DVB-S2-compatible receiver. Otherwise reception will unfortunately no longer be possible. Our programme has not been broadcast via the Astra satellite for some time.

We are often asked if we have any use for old records. However, we are pleased to refer you to the «swissjazzorama» Swiss jazz archive, as well as to the Swiss National Sound Archives. The latter only archives records with a link to Switzerland, however.

This is basically permitted, and we do not demand remuneration. On the other hand, you are obliged to follow your country’s rules for licence fees in public areas in order to protect the artists’ copyrights.

We do not accept direct applications. Any vacancies will be published on the SRG SSR website. Internships are unfortunately not possible at our station.