Our Mission
UK Jazz Radio was established to promote and develop jazz in the UK by:
Providing a new and vibrant listening opportunity on-air, on-line and live at venues
Giving new and established British musicians new playing and promotion
opportunities
Raising the awareness of people of all ages of the rich diversity of jazz
Our strap line “From jazz People for jazz people” demonstrates our commitment to focus
purely on jazz as a genre and an equal commitment to work with the wider jazz community.
On-line radio
UK Jazz Radio’s mission delivery is centred upon the foundation blocks of a 24 hour on-line
internet radio station, UK Jazz Radio.
Delivered through a dynamic website at www.ukjazzradio.com, the output can be listened to
through home computers, mobile phones, in-car mobile phone systems, Sony PlayStations,
wi-fi radios and the new generation of in-car wi-fi radios.
Industry experts are predicting an explosion in the availability of wi-fi radios and transistor
radios so UK Jazz Radio’s exposure can only be increased substantially as time goes by.
Other mission delivery mechanics
With the radio station underpinning mission delivery, we have a multi-faceted range of
opportunities. These include:
Supporting young people – developing young musicians and radio presenters,
offering showcase opportunities, facilitating workshops for talented musicians,
supporting CD launches, offering intern opportunities
Supporting existing musicians – developing them as radio presenters to raise their
profile and help acquire new skills, offering showcase opportunities, seeking paid
performance opportunities, supporting CD launches, giving them publicity, seeking
opportunities to perform overseas
Supporting live music venues and event organisers – offering publicity and
advertising opportunities, putting them in contact with artists
UK Jazz Festivals
As jazz fans, we love live music events but festivals, where the opportunity to enjoy great
artists, see new upcoming acts and good company of fellow jazz fans, are close to our
hearts.
We will support UK festivals, and the artists appearing, with publicity on-air and on-line.
Further, we will offer a fixed price events package – “The UK Jazz Radio Stage”. The festival
provides the venue and sound/lighting equipment and pays a fixed fee. In return, UK Jazz
Radio manage the stage for the event and supply quality acts together with a massive
promotions campaign.
The first UK Jazz Radio Stage will be at Marlborough International Jazz Festival 2010. To
raise the profile of the festival and performers, we are planning a UK “pre-Marlborough” tour
of smaller venues in the south of England.
Live music venues
Encouraging live music venues to host live jazz events is our way of helping artists to raise
their profile, develop their performance skills and to earn an income.
We offer venues the “UK Jazz Radio Showcase” package. We supply artists for an event and
heavily promote and publicise the showcase, the venue and the performers. This is at nocost
to the venue and we split the door money with the performers.
We are currently planning showcases at:
o 606 Club
o Vortex
o Black Mountain
o Jazz Cafe, Cardiff
o Jazz Cafe, Reading
o Bulls Head
In addition, we are in advanced discussions with venues in New Orleans, Paris and Brussels.
British Young Jazz Performer of the Year Award
Recognising and supporting young jazz performers is one of our paramount aims. We are
currently working on the detail but the event will centre around Marlborough.
Revenue generation
We are conscious that jazz radio stations are not cash cows. Rather, they have an alarming
tendency to be loss-making enterprises. We seek to at least break-even by:
o Offering businesses valuable opportunities to promote themselves to our audience
through advertising on-air and on our websites
o Accepting brokerage commission from artists for paid-for performance bookings
o Sharing the door-takings for live events and showcases with the venues and the
performing artists
Sharing our news
Word-of-mouth is a highly effective means of spreading the word about what UK Jazz Radio
is doing but is a slow process so we seek to share our news through viral marketing,
including:
o Our website – which is currently undergoing an upgrade
o Newsletters to our database
o Twitter
o Facebook
o MySpace
Of course, we promote ourselves on-air and through our presenters.
We are encouraged that musicians, bloggers and jazz webmasters have also encouraged us
through telling their audiences and/or website visitors about us and our events.
Potential future developments
o Feedback from some musicians was that there is a need for a new, dynamic, jazz
record label and we have put the framework of a new label in place
o The concept of collectives has proved to be a useful means of supporting artists,
both financially and professionally, and we wish to explore how UK Jazz Radio can
facilitate, support and encourage them
o Our vision includes putting together European and US tours for UK artists to give
them worldwide exposure and the opportunity to earn additional income