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Christmas Music in January?

T

Tiger1983

Weeks after the holidays season ended, I checked the website of the Clear Channel station out of the Williamsport, PA area and on their playlist they were still playing X-Mas tunes along with the regular playlist. That station is Kiss 102.7 WKSB. Other stations across the country HAVE stopped playing holiday music altogether as soon as we rang in the New Year. WKSB, as you know used to be a decent hot AC station with local talent, but now that it is owned by CC and not long after firing local personalities and adapted the Premium Choice format, the station began putting in "sleepy" 70's tunes(including disco) while playing their normal hot AC format. They only have one local personality doing the morning show. I think that playing even one X-Mas music at this time is wrong because the holidays are already over and people have already taken down Christmas decorations.

Here is the sample playlist taken from the past hour at this time of writing:

1. Billy Joel - My Life
2. Donna Summer - Macarthur Park
3. Matchbox 20 - Unwell
4. Don Henley - The Heart Of The Matter
5. Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Want To Have Fun
6. Celine Dion - That's The Way It Is
7. Reo Speedwagon - Keep On Loving You
8. Beyonce - Irreplaceable
9. Brenda Lee - This Time Of Year
10. Genesis - In Too Deep

I also seen another X-Mas song being played last night on the same station. I don't know if this is a programming error on PC's end, but face it, X-MAS is OVER!
 
OK, here's another update.

According to the station's playlist, they just played I'll Be Home for Christmas by Elvis Presley and Little Drummer Boy by the Jackson 5 within the hour.

UNBELIEVABLE!
 
I'm pretty sure Premium Choice has dropped all Christmas music by now. Looking at the Mediabase logs for various PC stations including WSRW Grand Rapids and WMXL Lexington, I don't see any Christmas music listed.

Did you actually hear these holiday songs played over the air or did you just see them listed on the website? I know that sometimes the "now playing" features on various CC station websites have glitches, like not long ago when the "now playing" list featured a bunch of '60s oldies on various PC stations (and the web streams for some stations actually were playing '60s oldies instead of the AC format) which the stations weren't really playing.
 
Tiger1983 said:
OK, here's another update.

According to the station's playlist, they just played I'll Be Home for Christmas by Elvis Presley and Little Drummer Boy by the Jackson 5 within the hour.

UNBELIEVABLE!
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's crazy! But some songs could be played, since they are "winter seasonal hits" and don't mention Christmas in the lyrics, like "Baby It's Cold Outside" or "Winter Wonderland" or even "My Favorite Things".
 
I heard a Trans-Siberian X-Mas song on 1/2 on KXXO. I think it was their newest hit; can't remember the title. But I also remember KXXO playing "Celebrate Me Home" Kenny Loggins in JULY once... ???

-crainbebo
 
When Clear Channel owned Kool 107 in Ann Arbor (now Ann Arbor's 107One, a AAA owned by Cumulus), they had "Celebrate Me Home" in rotation year-round.

On the flip side, you have songs like Dan Fogelberg's "Same Old Lang Syne" that weren't intended as "Christmas" or "holiday" songs when they were originally released but get airplay only around the holidays. Granted, "SOLS" was released around Christmas of 1980 and Christmas Eve is mentioned in the lyrics, but it had a much longer "shelf life" on the charts than your typical "holiday" hit, not reaching the Top 10 until February. So in January of 1981, that song was getting quite a bit of airplay.

Also, a couple of years ago, the Goo Goo Dolls released a single called "Better Days," which from the lyrics is quite obviously a Christmas song. Yet stations didn't really treat it as one, and it didn't make the transition to all-Christmas formats despite being a pretty sizeable hit on Hot AC at the time. (According to Wiki, it was also released to radio stations in September 2005, which was too early to start playing Christmas music anyway.)
 
Here we go again! KXXO played Trans-Siberian's Orchestra's "Dreams of Fireflies" (On A Christmas Night) (the newest hit) this afternoon around 12:30. Christmas has been over for more than a MONTH now!

-crainbebo
 
It sounds like the 'fill music settings' need adjustment. Don't work for any of those stations, but it sounds as if the hour was short of music and the computer 'auto-filled' with a Christmas song. If you were listening online, the odds are probably better that it could be the problem. If it bothers you, contact the station(s), they may not be aware of it.
 
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