We investigate propagation of waves in the Zener-type viscoelastic media through a model which involves fractional derivatives with a regular kernel. The restrictions on the coefficients in the constitutive equation that follow from the weak form of the dissipation principle are obtained. We formulate a problem of motion of a spatially one dimensional continuum in a dimensionless form. Then, it is considered in the frame of distribution theory. The existence and the uniqueness of a distributional solution as well as the analysis of its regularity are presented. Numerical results provide the illustration of our approach.