Going all-Christmas didn't help "Easy" any, especially going head-to-head with "Magic", but WEZZ's ratings have been on the decline for 6 months now...dropping almost 60% in that time period, so their woes can't be blamed exclusively on the all-Christmas fare. Those are just the 12+ numbers, of course, but you have to assume their key demos also reflect that drop in the 12+ numbers. I guess the folks at Summit Media were under the belief that the Easy 97.3 listeners would embrace the all-Christmas fare in much the same way the Magic 96.5 listeners have done over the years. Although the two formats overlap to some extent, what mainstream AC listeners want and what traditional soft AC listeners want are not one and the same. I've seen posts on Facebook from listeners of other traditionally-based soft AC stations such as Long Island's WLIX-FM, for example, and they will tell you..they don't mind hearing Christmas music, they just don't want a month or two of it, nonstop. They want the Christmas music sprinkled in here and there with the usual programming. Year before last, 97.3 was very wise in their decision to unveil their new format shortly after Magic 96.5 went all Christmas, as a means to siphon off "Magic's" listeners. This past Christmas, they do a "180" and offer all Christmas music...something their listeners were trying to avoid the year before.
