Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles and Dave Brubeck are just a sampling of the many musicians jazzing up local airwaves everyday on Fresno State̢۪s radio station, KFSR 90.7.

KFSR has been a fixture of the FM dial since 1982 and reaches a half-million listeners daily.

The station reaches as far south as Kingsburg and as far north as Madera — most of Fresno County.

KFSR, a non-commercial station, relies solely on listener support. Station manager Joe Moore says a majority of the donations are from the listeners, and “85 percent of the listeners are jazz listeners,” Moore said.

Because the station primarily plays jazz music, some college students don̢۪t find it appealing. For example, Michael Martinez, 22, a business major, has never listened to the radio station.

“I’ve never heard it,” Martinez said. “I don’t really know for sure what they play.”

When another Fresno State student, Joe Foster, a 20-year-old business student, was asked about the campus radio station, all he said was “what radio station?”

“I don’t even know what radio station it is,” Foster said.

In a recent survey, 25 random students were asked if they would listen to the station if other genres of music were played. All 25 of these students said yes.

But KFSR doesn̢۪t just play jazz. There is a wide variety of music that gets played throughout the day.

Jazz usually has the spotlight from midnight until 6 p.m. After 6 p.m., the Evening Eclectic takes the stage and goes on until midnight.

According to the stations Web site, Evening Eclectic, which used to be called the Afternoon Eclectic, is primarily “radio, remixed.” The station made the decision to make the switch from the afternoon to the evening, due to poor ratings.

“Everyday at noon, two-thirds of our listeners would turn the radio off,” Moore said.

The Afternoon Eclectic targeted the younger crowd, but where was the younger crowd during this time? In class.

By making the change from afternoon to evening, the station has seen a dramatic rise in ratings for both of the jazz shows and the eclectic shows.

All genres are played during the Evening Eclectic, whether or not the artist is signed to a record label. Genres ranging from electronica to local up-and-coming rock bands are played during these slots.

“We play local artists throughout our programming,” Moore said.

According to Moore, hundreds of CDs are sent to the station from local artists to get some air time. From there, the music staff of KFSR picks what gets played and what doesn̢۪t.

Another thing that KFSR does is special programming, which also helps to keep the station going.

A very big upcoming show that the station is putting on is “Evening Eclectic EN VIVO!” on March 31 at The Crossroads.

The show highlights three bands: Brazzaville, The Same Shape, and El Olio Wolof. The Same Shape and El Olio Wolof are both from the Fresno County, but Brazzaville, a rock band from Barcelona, is making one of their three U.S. pit stops right here in Fresno.

Some people might see that the station plays a lot of jazz, but what they don̢۪t see is that the station plays everything.