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The Year Without a Christmas Thread 🎄

Miguelito

Miguelito

This may be the closest we've ever gotten to November without anyone mentioning Christmas music. It's historically a topic that is steeped in unhinged levels of hatred, which I have to admit I find amusing.

I suppose, since there's not much else going on, we could speculate on when we think B101 might flip. It's a shame we don't have a way to have a pool/poll and award prizes. (Or would that be gambling?)

Considerations: Thanksgiving is late this year (November 28). B101 almost always (but not always) flips on a Thursday. The December survey starts on Thursday, November 7, which is probably too early for them to make the switch. Will they wait until the 21st? Or is it more likely they'll do it on the 14th?

Going as early as the 7th could piss off a lot of regular listeners. But the Christmas music always brings a huge increase in listenership--making it a big money-maker--so why wait until the 21st? I'm thinking: "Split the difference and do it on the 14th." I'm sure the Sales department already knows!
 
B101 already has their Christmas music survey and the fine print says that it ends on Sunday November 17. So they will probably flip on Thursday November 21.
 
You can always browse on other RD threads if you need a Xmas fix. There is a current thread about Hallmark Channel Xmas movies starting already and a mention of one radio station elsewhere whose HD-2 station has already gone all Xmas.
 
B101 was pressured to flip early when Sunny 104.5, 98.1 WOGL, and 106.1 The Breeze beat them to it. And 99.5 WJBR to a lesser extent
 
nd2023 said:
B101 was pressured to flip early when Sunny 104.5, 98.1 WOGL, and 106.1 The Breeze beat them to it. And 99.5 WJBR to a lesser extent
Click to expand...
For some reason, some people absolutely love arguing about this. I assume at least one (probably the one I have blocked) will be champing at the bit to do so ASAP. So let me jump in here real quick to say: Your assertion is literally inarguably true. There are obvious instances when, in the face of competition, B101 flipped earlier than their own precedent would indicate. Perhaps the most memorable was when iHeart tricked them into flipping (IIRC, before even mid-November) by acting like 106.1 was going to play all Christmas music for the remainder of the year. (We presumably all recall what actually happened--and that, in the long run, it didn't mean much since The Breeze was ultimately a dismal failure anyway.)

At this point, some more stubborn members might be thinking, "He said nd2023's assertion is 'literally inarguably' true," but I can argue with everything he's said here so far. Well, buckle up. The reason it's literally inarguable is that one year in particular, whoever was programming B101 literally said in the newspaper that he called into the studio on a Saturday morning and instructed them to switch over to Christmas music because he'd become aware that 99.5 WJBR had done so earlier in the day. I think he even said something about having to "protect the franchise." Hard to argue that something didn't happen when the program director used his actual mouth to say that it did.

And let's also not forget that B101 used to only do "36 Hours of Christmas" starting at noon on Christmas Eve. They only started the annual weeks-long stunt after Sunny 104.5 showed them how it's done.
 
After over two decades of stations going all-Christmas, most of them have been making their "switch" on the same day every year for quite awhile. Even new out-of-the-blue competitors are not guaranteed to have stations change their strategy. If a station always goes on the third Friday of November, that's going to keep happening at this point.
 
lanceventa said:
After over two decades of stations going all-Christmas, most of them have been making their "switch" on the same day every year for quite awhile. Even new out-of-the-blue competitors are not guaranteed to have stations change their strategy. If a station always goes on the third Friday of November, that's going to keep happening at this point.
Click to expand...
The only variations I see most years can be attributed to how early or late Thanksgiving is. A Nov. 23 Thanksgiving means more days between Black Friday and Christmas Eve; a Nov. 29 Thanksgiving means fewer. I know that more and more shopping is done well before Black Friday nowadays, but business still picks up with December approaching, and that translates to more target-demo women getting into the spirit of the season (sentimentality/spending/family) and listening to Jose and Bing and Nat and Mariah while wrapping presents. So a station may fire up its ho-ho-ho playlist a few days to a week earlier in late-Thanksgiving years.
 
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