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2025 Holiday Music Formats
- Thread starter HenryOchs
- Start date
Does the Bay Area have a history of random stations doing surprise Christmas flips, or is KOIT the Christmas station there?
I think that's pretty much it. KOIT has been the flagship Christmas station here for decades. That doesn't stop others from doing it, of course.
I prefer to not overindulge until, maybe, a day or so before Christmas proper, and maybe a day or so after.
Anything else seems excessive.
<rant>
The Hallmark Channel, for example, is running 24/7 Christmas from October 17 through to early February. How can anyone stand watching 24/7 Christmas movies (most of which, frankly, aren't even that good) for almost four months uninterrupted?!
I'll watch a handful or so of the classics (Miracle on 34th Street, It's a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, etc.) maybe a week before Christmas and during the week between Christmas and New Years if there's one I want to see. I can't really take much more than that, and I cannot fathom that the sort of person who would willingly watch 24/7 Christmas for four months actually exists.
That sort of person, I suppose, would love listening to 24/7 Christmas on the radio, too.
And the worst part? I actually KNOW someone like that!
</rant>
c
There must be a significant number of them, because there are plenty of online streams of 24/7/365 holiday songs available, and even one permanent channel on the SiriusXM app.
I assume you're male, as am I. The Christmas music demographic is overwhelmingly female, and you and I will never fully understand that.
At this point, most markets only have one legacy Christmas music station. Back when it was a new gimmick, one station typically tried it out, and if they were successful they had first mover advantage as long as they didn't do something stupid to blow it. Other stations in that same market might have tried it once too, but the first mover usually won the holiday ratings, so those other stations figured out ways to counter-program to attract the rest of us who aren't into musical sugar highs.
In the Bay Area it was KOIT. In NYC it was WLTW, "Lite-FM". I recall WCBS-FM tried it one year, WNEW did a different year, can't remember who else (though for obvious reasons it wouldn't have been another iHeart station), but they all gave up and ceded the crown to Lite and went after the "don't cares".
I do enjoy hearing certain songs and artists that we don't get to hear in regular rotation anymore -- Nat King Cole, for example, or Burl Ives -- but overall I'd be thrilled to never hear most of that pablum ever again.
In the Bay Area it was KOIT. In NYC it was WLTW, "Lite-FM". I recall WCBS-FM tried it one year, WNEW did a different year, can't remember who else (though for obvious reasons it wouldn't have been another iHeart station), but they all gave up and ceded the crown to Lite and went after the "don't cares".
I do enjoy hearing certain songs and artists that we don't get to hear in regular rotation anymore -- Nat King Cole, for example, or Burl Ives -- but overall I'd be thrilled to never hear most of that pablum ever again.
Same here.
What I dread is once again being forced to hear countless lousy remakes of "Jingle Bells," among other tasteless renditions.
c
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Personally, I liked Frank Sinatra's "big band" take on that old chestnut.
Otherwise, I'd rather hear "Jingle Bell Rock".
In WDRC-FM Hartford's oldies/classic hits days (pre-2007 sale to Connoisseur that took them classic rock), Wilson Pickett's "Jingle Bells" was pulled out of the vault every December for occasional airplay. DRC tried to fully compete with the entrenched Christmas station WRCH for one holiday season, using a library heavy on '60s/'70s pop and soul holiday songs rather than the tried and true for a full month, but went back to the usual format of a few Christmas songs an hour the following year.
I recall that all-Xmas exploded in a big way in 2001 (so, apx 3 months after 9/11). I believe KFRC went all-Xmas that year, but I don't think they ever did it again.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
2001 was the first year KOST here in Los Angeles did all-Christmas, starting in early November. I'm pretty sure their ratings success is what drove other stations in other markets to adopt the same philosophy.
Hallmark is one of the most-watched cable networks, particularly among the female demographic, so they're doing something right.
If you listen to Hallmark tell it, 2024 was their 11th straight year as the #1 entertainment cable network among women in the 4th quarter (when they're running these Christmas marathons).
So, uh, don't ask me to explain women.
And the original all-Christmas was done in Phoenix by Jerry Ryan.
The Birth of All-Christmas Radio with Jerry Ryan | Twelve Songs of Christmas
These days, we take the all-Christmas radio format for granted. Every year, countless adult contemporary--AC--stations temporarily change their format and go wall to wall with Christmas music somewhere between Halloween and Black Friday. Jerry Ryan gets the credit for pioneering the switch when...
(Jerry was later the manager of the HBC stations in Phoenix and then Univision in Chicago)
It was the reaction to the trauma of 9/11. People wanted escapism. Making Christmas come early provided it. Unfortunately, it never stopped.
Another thing 9/11 gave us that never went away: bottom-screen cable and local news station news tickers. Prior to 9/11 they were only on the screen during major crises like tornadoes, hurricanes, and elections.
(Why's there no tongue-in-cheek emoticon here...)
FNN and its successor, CNBC, were using tickers well before 2001.
Phoenix's KESZ (99.9 mHz) is often credited with being the first modern AC station to go all Christmas starting on Thanksgiving or the day after, and I believe the first year the station did that was 2000. (OK, Killowatt Kat, if I got the dates wrong, I apologize in advance.) (And I see now that KESZ actually started the programming in 1990.)
But KESZ in fact wasn't the first station to go all Christmas just days before the holiday. I remember visiting my grandmother on my mom's side in the years 1976, 1977, and 1978 in Tujunga and hearing all holiday music on the 900 kHz station licensed to Santa Ana and (very fuzzily) on Los Angeles' KBIG-FM as well.
It is my understanding that the group that likes holiday music the most is department stores and other places that sell Christmas gifts. Apparently, having holiday music on puts people in the mood for gift purchasing.
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True. I was thinking about general news headline tickers only.
Going back to the original question and going by memory, KOIT-FM didn't go all Christmas last year until the day after Thanksgiving. And though the IHeart station at 98.1 mHz runs a similar AC format, it has never done all Christmas music since its inception. My guess is, that unless the new owners of KOIT-FM opt for something different, we will most likely see KOIT-FM as the all-Christmas station for this season with no competition in the bay area. And the seasonal music will either begin right before or right after Thanksgiving.
Which station was that? I was under the impression that 900 kHz was a clear channel frequency and that the only station licensed to it in the southern California area was the 500 watt KGRB in West Covina.
http://www.socalradiohistory.com/kgrb.html
You are correct.
As Killowatt Kat "questioned" in another thread, I am, especially when it comes to historical stuff, going by memory. Thanks for the correction.
As Killowatt Kat "questioned" in another thread, I am, especially when it comes to historical stuff, going by memory. Thanks for the correction.
WCIU-TV Chicago was using an on-screen stock ticker during its Stock Market Observer as early as the late 1960s. I believe KWHY Los Angeles was doing something similar a few years later.