It would not hurt if B101 played what they always have. People like to hear the stuff that is familiar to them, especially around the holidays. If the breeze wants to be successful this holiday season, they have to decide as to whether or not they're going ho-ho-ho this year or not, and soon. I'd say decide by October 1st, then spend the rest of October curating a strong and planned out library of holiday tunes that either B101 hasn't played in years, or won't play at all. Make sure it has a distinct Breeze flavor to it, to stand out amongst WJBR and B101.
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August PPM's (It wasn't a fluke)
- Thread starter Miguelito
- Start date
As I said, iHeart will do a national Christmas format that its stations can run. Local curation of Christmas music is not the way they roll. So it'll be up to local management to either take it, or play more relaxing hits. I checked song lists at ten iHeart stations last year, and they were exactly the same.
You could be right. Not many Entercom stations do the holiday flip, but it's very common for iHeart, because it's easy to do and it gets great results.
Just throwing it out there that there may be good reasons for the songs B101 (and WJBR) don’t play. Certainly, the Breeze stakes out some songs in the regular format that don’t play elsewhere. But Christmas is different. The B goes plenty heavy on the classics alongside newer (a relative term in the holiday season).
It may be a moot point given the iHeart operational approach, but as a theoretical exercise, I’d wonder how much upside there would be.
The "lead" station in all Christmas is KOST, where a lot of research has been done. And the company includes what is often called the first "all Christmas" format running from just after Thanksgiving, KESZ in Phoenix.
https://jacobsmedia.com/radios-most-innovative-all-christmas-music/ shows how all-Christmas developed.
Obviously, iHeart realized that the research on Christmas songs gave about the same results in every market, it made sense to put all the updating and creative efforts in one place.
I listened last Christmas to KOST a number of times... and I am not particularly fond of the music... but the mood creation, the flow and the pacing was magnificent. They do a genius level job of putting it together; comparing it to the most similar Sirius Christmas channel, I'd give a D- to Sirius and an A+ to KOST. They show what a curated music collection on commercial radio is capable of achieving.
I give the XM holiday channels a D- when I’m being charitable. Holly is too bizarre for my tastes.
The Music Choice Sounds of the Season Christmas library is atrocious. Year after year, they mix a handful of classics and a few newer titles with a playlist of barely-listenable oddities. Someone somewhere must like them because they play them year after year after year. Stuff you would never hear on any radio station. I wish I could give you some examples but I think my brain has blocked them!
Has anyone noticed that The Pulse format they put on there between holidays hasn't been updated in many, many years. It's actually a pretty neat ambient EDM sorta combo but there's nothing on there more recent than 2012.
Yeah, MusicChoice holiday is pretty grating.
Then again, I never got the adoration for Sunny 104.5, which also felt—to me—to have way too many oddities or versions from ages gone by I never heard (or didn’t recall). I’m not at all averse to newer versions of the ol’ chestnuts or new entries as a general principle, if they fit the general tone.
I will say that apart from the liners and such last year, I found XM’s Hallmark station far more tolerable than Holly. I get the need for that extra content, of course.
Then again, I never got the adoration for Sunny 104.5, which also felt—to me—to have way too many oddities or versions from ages gone by I never heard (or didn’t recall). I’m not at all averse to newer versions of the ol’ chestnuts or new entries as a general principle, if they fit the general tone.
I will say that apart from the liners and such last year, I found XM’s Hallmark station far more tolerable than Holly. I get the need for that extra content, of course.
Personally, one of the things I loved about Sunny's Christmas format was that they had a knack for playing unfamiliar songs that were actually good. Remembering that I have loved Christmas and Christmas music since I was literally two months old, I had never even heard "Merry Christmas Darling" by the Carpenters until Sunny 104.5. (Though to be fair, at first I hated it because it was unfamiliar and it felt like they were playing it every 90 minutes like a current on Q102.) They also introduced me to Aretha Franklin's version of "Winter Wonderland," which is amazing yet still doesn't seem to get played on any terrestrial stations that I've heard. It ended up that Sunny didn't play any song I didn't enjoy. I also loved the presentation. It was obvious that they had put some real thought, time, and effort into it--which is really something when you consider the company didn't want to spend more than 20 cents to run that station! And of course, they were the first station in Philadelphia to do the extended all-Christmas format so I think that gave them a place in peoples' hearts, so to speak. I was a Sunny "P1" year-round but what they did for Christmas is what made me really love them.
If that Christmas library is still in existence, I would be absolutely thrilled if whoever's programming The Breeze were to put it on this year. And it feels like it would be a pretty good idea. Sunny 104.5 obviously curated the library in the spirit of a Soft AC format. The Breeze is a Soft AC station and the audience seems more open to the format now than they did then. Throwing on the iHeart cookie-cutter Christmas library won't fit the Soft AC format. It'll be different from what B101.1 is doing...but will it be what The Breeze listeners actually want? (Kelly Clarkson, Taylor Swift, and Ariana Grande every hour?) I think they'd be better off differentiating themselves by playing the older, softer Sunny chestnuts that B101.1 obviously doesn't want to.
It really is a fascinating dynamic. I mean, come Christmas (and this assumes for argument things at the B remain relatively similar), artists that show up on the Breeze end up on the B. Gloria Estefan, Neil Diamond, Faith Hill....that kind of thing. And of course the Sinatra, Cole, Williams etc. Air Supply...Barry Manilow... AC becomes very soft relative to its normal sound.
You can adjust around the edges—how much Springsteen, Eurythmics and such, and the tempo, imaging, etc. Honestly, to my ears, if you took the bulk (I don’t know, maybe 75%?) of the Bs library, it would fit a Breeze format. I realize the importance of that difference just as there are songs they share now, but, to me, it’s not a vastly different song set so much as presentation.
You can adjust around the edges—how much Springsteen, Eurythmics and such, and the tempo, imaging, etc. Honestly, to my ears, if you took the bulk (I don’t know, maybe 75%?) of the Bs library, it would fit a Breeze format. I realize the importance of that difference just as there are songs they share now, but, to me, it’s not a vastly different song set so much as presentation.
If The Breeze does Christmas, I don't have high hopes for the presentation based solely on the listless presentation of their current format. They'd probably have that creepy man cut five or six dry liners saying things like "Your home for Philly’s relaxing holiday favorites," "More of Philly's relaxing holiday favorites just minutes away," and "Now back to Philly's relaxing holiday favorites..." Blech.
I definitely agree that there would be a ton of sharing if both stations were to hit the switch. They'd both have to play Mariah Carey, Josh Groban, and a bunch of the Very Special Christmas titles from the late '80s and early '90s. And so many standard Christmas classics were recorded by artists who fit the Soft AC mold so their songs end up on pretty much any all-Christmas station. But yes, it's those edges that would make the difference. Both stations would be playing Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Mannheim Steamroller, Eagles, Brenda Lee, Nat King Cole, Jose Feliciano, Andy Williams, Elvis, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and the like...but The Breeze might want to go heavier on those type of artists, along with stuff like Ray Conniff and some of the titles from the Sunny 104.5 days that B101.1 avoids. (And gimme my Aretha song again!) This all would make up for the fact that they definitely should not be playing upbeat stuff by artists like Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, 'N Sync, and even Pentatonix (well, maybe The Breeze could play their cover of "Hallelujah"). I'm sure the robotic iHeart Cookie Cutter library includes lots of that stuff.
If they're considering Christmas and they're only thinking about using the iHeart library, I think they're going to lose #bigly. And what if some of their listeners who defect for B101's Christmas library don't come back after the holidays? Put in the work on the front end, then let that curated library do all the work. Then they could do a few tweaks each year as they see fit.
And BTW: If they're gonna do it, they're gonna have to do it hella early to make a splash. I think the first year Sunny did it, they went on November 5 and the word-of-mouth was yuuuuuuuuuge.
[Made some edits for clarity and grammar.]
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That's easy for you to say, but their presentation has worked in bigger cities like Chicago and Dallas year after year. WLIT always gets the best numbers of the year when they flip to Christmas. That's why they do it.
Things that are easy are my favorite things to say! I know they see increases in other markets with all-Christmas (almost all stations do) but in this situation, they're the new kid in town and they would be trying to go up against an established Christmas giant which has had the lane entirely to themselves for years...and which gets upwards of 16 and 17 shares when they do it.
They're not the only station doing Christmas in several markets including LA. They've done this before. It's not a hobby. No need to reinvent the wheel.
I'm suggesting that it wouldn't work here. If B101.1 does what they usually do for Christmas and The Breeze stays with their regular format, it's fair to assume that WISX will take a hit for that period. If, on the other hand, they want to attempt a snowball fight, they have a choice: Build a thoughtful library, flip significantly earlier than B101.1, and actually compete. Or put on the unfocused iHeart library and spend five weeks watching their listeners change the station as they remember how they've loved WBEB's Christmas library for years and years.
It’s such an interesting dynamic. B has an even bigger head start than back in the Sunny days. More time to be entrenched. On the flip side, the Breeze has made headway that Sunny didn’t. (And on the third hand, being in a strong competitive position throughout the other 10 months wasn’t exactly a boon to WOGL in their pre-sisterhood head-to-head battle days.)
Now toss in the Entercom ownership and any ramifications that has, and from a purely business standpoint, this becomes something with few strong parallels to past years. There’s approximately zero doubt that 101 will be in the holiday spirit. But I wouldn’t wager a buck on where iHeart will wind up this year.
Now toss in the Entercom ownership and any ramifications that has, and from a purely business standpoint, this becomes something with few strong parallels to past years. There’s approximately zero doubt that 101 will be in the holiday spirit. But I wouldn’t wager a buck on where iHeart will wind up this year.
I'm suggesting you're wrong. The fact that BEB is down so much now shows that they are vulnerable. Regardless, if iHeart does it in Philly, the purpose will be to attract advertisers, not ratings. The holiday book isn't counted.
This is kinda what I'm talking about. B101.1 is very much fully entrenched as Philadelphia's Christmas Station. People obviously love what they do and it's gonna take more than a lame attempt if the brand new station wants to even try to compete. Of course, they could do what WOGL was doing by going all Christmas, which I always suspected was not necessarily to compete with WBEB but was just an attempt to slow the bleeding. If that's all The Breeze wants to do, then by all means throw on the iHeart library and see what happens. Of course, they could also just stay in their regular format and just not sell ads for the last month-and-a-half of the year. LOL
You really love arguing. I'm suggesting YOU'RE wrong. The fact that WBEB is down so much now has absolutely no bearing on what's going to happen at Christmas, especially if they're the only Christmas station in town. It's not like they'd only pop up to a 7 or 8. But seriously, I'm not going to keep going back and forth with you. We come here to have discussions and enjoy ourselves. So go ahead and get your last word. Happy Holidays.
What would be really funny would be if B101.1 just didn't do it this year. (No chance of that happening, obvs. But I would find it to be hilarious.)
None of this will have any bearing on what iHeart does. As I said, the holiday book doesn't count. They don't care.
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