The public radio KUNV 91.5 FM station recently won Beats Magazine's “2022 Smooth Jazz Station Of The Year.” On December 15 of last year, RADIO ONLINE, an outlet that provides the latest radio industry news, brought the news of the announcement to KUNV 91.5.
The station is a nonprofit that is currently owned by the Nevada Board of Regents and operates out of the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs at 51ԹϺ. The only other public station that the regents have ownership over is KUNR, which operates out of the University of Nevada, Reno.
Broadcasting to the Las Vegas valley, 91.5 FM specializes in playing smooth jazz and hosting musicians on air. Jason Beatty says that 91.5 is called a hitmaker station and has also been designated as a Nielsen rated channel. “Our influence on the smooth jazz chart is pretty robust. Every time we play a song, it accounts for almost a quarter of all of the smooth jazz chart play,” said Beatty.
Outside of entertaining its listeners, the station hosts contests and raffles. Much of their contests involve listeners calling in to try to win free tickets to shows. The station also has a number of undergraduate students working the board in order to gain hands-on experience. Daily tasks at the station include programming music, hosting guests on the show and scripting the weekly promotions.
General manager Ashton Ridley said, “It’s truly an honor to win this recognition against these other fantastic stations.” Looking to the future, the station hopes to develop their endowment fund so they won’t have to continue holding membership drives.
“We were very lucky to receive a generous donation from a nice gentleman from the community which allowed us to start an endowment fund,” said Beatty. “We have now combined his donation with matching funds and hope that one day we will be able to sustain our operations from the fund rather than through our membership drives.” This recent award adds to a long list of other accolades that the station has received, including being named as Las Vegas Weekly’s “2017 Best New Local Radio Station.”
