It's a little bit of nostalgic indulgence, but let's go back in the day to when radio was exciting.  This is how it worked.  There was a live human being in the center of the mix.  He/She sat in front of a control board, basically a mixer surrounded by equipment.  There were two or three turntables (replaced by CD players later), a few "cart decks" to play commercials and sound effects that were recorded onto loops of tape.  There were reel-to-reel tape decks for recording phone calls, news, live interviews and such, and a phone with several lines constantly blinking with listener calls.  The DJ was in constant motion, setting up and cueing up all these different things so there would be none of the dreaded "dead air," all the while taking song requests and talking to listeners.  Even then, you didn't pick the music you played, but there was some leeway.  If a song was on the playlist you could play it a little earlier than it would have come up otherwise, you were even allowed to go out of bounds sometimes.  The music was picked by a team of people who worked at the station.  The Program Director, Music Director, and usually some other people on the staff would meet to listen to new releases and talk about which songs were getting more popular.  Sometimes there were research studies to look at, sales figures and requests still counted, and well-tempered instinct - the "feel" for hearing a hit song in the making - was a factor too.  All those things were taken into account and the rotations (which songs got played more often) were set up and adds (new songs) were picked that way.  When he got in the booth, the DJ had certain things that had to be talked up.  You were supposed to create excitement about the station and the music, you had to keep your talk sets brief and concise, and talk to the listener not at them.  There were rules, there was structure, but there was still a lot of individuality and personality.  You know - the human touch.

Jump forward a decade or so.  Digital technology arrives and makes our job easier.  Now you don't have to cut up tape with a razor blade, or start over completely when you make a mistake reading commercial copy, or
worry about scratches and random food particles making records, then CDs, stick and skip.  You can cut and paste sound just like you do with words on a word processor and all the music is on the hard drive.  All you have to do is drag and drop the next song.  Internet access in the studio makes it easy for you to find information to share with your listeners.  Technological advantages that make it easier to make your show sound tighter - a perfect high-tech high-touch situation. 

Then technology got a leg up and that leg kicked human beings to the curb.  This development happened at the peak of the consolidation era, when companies were buying up stations then selling the whole lot to larger companies.  These acquisition binges came with heavy debt services.  Lenders and stockholders wanted quick and constant profit so the ownership groups started looking at ways to cut costs...  Cutting humans is always the first default when it comes to cost cutting and technology brought a way to do it.  They realized that DJ only talks for a short period of their show.  The rest of the time is spent setting things up and triggering them.  Computers could already start a series of songs and commercials so a person wasn't needed for that.  If the DJ pre-record their talk breaks and just lay them in between the songs their 5 hour show could actually be finished in a half hour or so.  Doing that shift became a part time job with no benefits.  The next step was to get one person to record the talk breaks for multiple stations and just send them down the line where they could be laid into that station's computer so a live person wasn't needed at all.  This is called "Voicetracking," and the majority of the on-air shifts these days are done that way, very few midday or night shifts are live.  There is nobody in the studio, just a computer rolling songs, talk, and commercials.  Syndication was the obvious next step, especially to fill in mornings and afternoons where more content was necessary.  Stations began to replace their local personalities with high profile national talents.  Delilah, the adult contemporary love songs hostess, was so successful that others started to pick up syndicated night shows, then morning stars like Lex and Terry and Howard Stern.  While this was happening the big corporations also centralized their programming and research departments so decisions about music content were made at the corporate office instead of locally and air personalities were given scripts to read, often verbatim, for their talk breaks. 

Smooth Jazz has been hit the hardest by this because it is considered a background music format and if people aren't supposed to pay close attention then they won't miss having real people talking between the songs.  It's in our blood as a radio format, because the version of the format that gained the highest profile was the mid-90s version of Smooth Jazz that popped up on big stations all over the country and was completely syndicated.  Most stations kept mornings and afternoons live but used the network feed the rest of the time.  As the format hit its heyday stations did add more live people.  For a while most stations were even live during the late night hours but ratings started to fall and the big ownership groups started to buckle under debt while stockholders demanded more-more-more so stations began to phase out people and add more voicetracking or "jockless" shifts where all you heard between songs was a deep soothing voice over a pleasant musical background telling you the name of the station that was smoooooooooothing out your morning/workday/night.  Then the Smooth Jazz Network debuted in early 2007 and gave radio stations a chance to take a 24/7 network feed of the format with little to no outlay on their part.  What perfect timing!  With group owners squeezing the wallets shut and already laying people off, here was a chance to deliver a product that sounded like what they already had without the overhead.  They also gave listeners the impression that famous musicians were in the control room sharing their personal favorite songs, when in reality the musicians were doing just what their non-celebrity peers were doing - voicetracking pre-scripted talk breaks that introduced preprogrammed music.  The pre-programmed music has also made a visible shift away from contemporary instrumentals and toward adult contemporary oldies and crossovers.

So that's where we are today.  Your "local" smooth jazz station is most likely a computer in the far corner of a building that houses 4-6 radio stations owned by the same company.  Most of them are in empty rooms with computers too, although a human may come in in the morning or to do the traffic reports in the afternoon.  That's why I kind of shake my head when musicians put out email blasts that say, "call your station and request my new song."  Exactly who is going to answer the phone?  If someone does, what are the chances that they have any input into what music gets played? 

There are still a few corporate stations that use live people.  KIFM in San Diego comes to mind.  But sadly, even WLOQ in Orlando - one of the few remaining independent stations, and a station that used to be proud of their live, local focus - got rid of their heritage personalities and is only live during drive times.  The people haven't gone away though.  Brunch shows and noncommercial stations still have lots of show hosts who live in the market and love the music and the listeners.  Many of the big name personalities who got laid off have reappeared on the Internet hosting their own streams.  Some of them have taken the independence and run with it, adding much more musical diversity than their previous handcuffs allowed.  Others have stuck to the straight and narrow mix of relaxing vocals and covers.  But this time it's their choice and they are playing for you, not a stockholder.  The most exciting things, though, are going down with the DIY crowd, noncommercial broadcasters and indie Internet streamers.  These people who don't have the impressive corporate resumes but do have creativity, passion, and astonishing music libraries...  They are unafraid.  They never had the corporate constraints that cause you to question any step away from the thin narrow line.  They are doing what they love, often while holding down full time jobs and taking care of family obligations.  These are the ones who will bring our music back to the front lines because the current crop of new releases are the best we've had in years and this is the group who are not afraid to play them.  So dig around the Internet.  Support your local brunch show if you have one.  If not, find one you like and support it.  Check out the noncom and college stations.  Hit your search engine and find some streams.  Join Facebook even if you hate networking sites, because most of these active people are posting about their shows, and it's an easy way to find new music and support the new players on the field.  It's a two-way thing and we are all a part of it.  The next wave is here and it belongs to everyone, not just a chosen corporate few.