Were it November 1st, I would have said "Yes, they're going all-Christmas".
But maybe it's a stunt, possibly to create buzz on messageboards like this one. Maybe they'll go back to their regular programming in a day or two, but then go back to all-Christmas in a couple of weeks (perhaps saying on-air that they just ran a "preview" of their Christmas format, and that it'll be back, 24/7 until the Big Day, soon).
On the other hand, they (at least in 12-plus) are doing well in the ratings, ranked fifth in the Atlantic City/Cape May market Arbitrons for Spring 2005.
But this year, many stations probably were going to go all-Christmas earlier anyway, mainly to help their major ad category (retail stores) to try to avoid a disasterous Christmas shopping season (with the real possibility that total retail sales this year will be less than last year, even before being adjusted for inflation). Remember that for most music-formatted stations, most of the ad revenue comes from retail advertisers. And if this year's Christmas shopping season is a disaster, retailers could cut back on advertising in 2006, which would badly wound music-formatted radio. I can even see retail pressuring radio to start their all-Christmas programming earlier than last year since it seems to subliminally implores many people to "get your Christmas shopping done!".
Although I don't expect the number of all-Christmas stations this year to be much higher (if at all) than last year's total of about 300 (and less than 2003's total of 394 stations), I expect that over a hundred stations nationally will take the plunge on November 1st, with perhaps fifty others doing so by the end of that week. And even those stations that don't go all-Christmas will start sprinkling-in Christmas selections earlier this year and possibly play more Christmas music than in the past, again to please retail advertisers.
