There is positively NO evidence that any station that goes all Christmas loses revenue and audience the rest of the year. Unless the non Christmas programming is bad.
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Christmas?
- Thread starter Jim1987
- Start date
Yes, exactly this. When you think of some of the perennial Christmas format leaders (WLIT/Chicago, KOST/Los Angeles, KDGE/Dallas, WKQC/Charlotte — just to name a few), these are stations that are generally at or near the top of their markets from January to October and then shoot to even greater heights in the final ~50 days of the year.
The only open question this year in Atlanta is if any stations react to the absence of The Fish, which did play a mostly secular song rotation and ably filled the gaps of both secular and religious Christian stations for the market. Kevin & Taylor have teased playing Christmas songs on their social channels recently and are promoting a Lauren Daigle Christmas concert giveaway all this week. Certainly expect Star to play a good amount of Christmas songs, if not full-time.
Not sure if it translates to ratings that matter but B98.5 ratings have improved significantly in the last few books. If it does, something is working right now and I don’t think it makes sense to mess with anything right now.
Agree! Star is in the same position. They're getting their game plan together and I am sure they don't want to break it up for 60 days of Christmas music.
They did it on the weekends either last year.or the year before. IIRC
They’ve played all-Christmas weekends each year since 2020.
You're right! I had forgotten that. Thank you!
After looking at the 6+ today, I nominate Powerless 105.3 with a .04 and was behind 2 translators. WFOM is about to catch them. If ever a station needed flipped to Christmas Music this is it. Who ever is responsible for formats at the cluster needs to rethink what ever they are trying to do. The weird thing about the situation, if they would have waited with CHR on 96.1 for Burt to retire, and found a morning show they might have made life tuff on 99.7. But who knew Burt would take an early retirement. But someone at iHeart who thought the "best of Jubel's" yesterday should be looking for another job. But I digress.
I would go Christmas as soon as possible. I know the signal is not that great north of 285 but I would put some kind of Adult Hits. IMHO If they could get one third the acceptable and one third of percentage of market revenue that WCBS FM is getting it would have to be better than what they have now.
I would go Christmas as soon as possible. I know the signal is not that great north of 285 but I would put some kind of Adult Hits. IMHO If they could get one third the acceptable and one third of percentage of market revenue that WCBS FM is getting it would have to be better than what they have now.
Has this been replicated in other markets?
A couple of stations I have worked at, slowly increased Christmas Music after Thanksgiving. One song an hour for couple of days then 2 an hour so on until all Christians music Dec 23 or 24th. At 12:01 AM December 26th they were gone. Back before PC automation the last week was hard on the air staff. IMHO back then there were only 20 or 30 songs just done by different artists. It really makes one appreciate the old Top 40 jocks who manually spun 45 records working with 50 or less songs not counting recurrents which you most likely had hear ever other hour recently.
Keep in mind too, that the southwest quadrant of metro ATL can pick up 98.1, which has already flipped to all-Christmas. Does not reach listeners in the north or east of the city, but at least a small part of the ATL is getting their holiday fix
I wonder if iHeart has a Christmas "play list" that features Jazz, Soul, R&B artists somewhere? I guess you could start with Nat King Cole and come forward. I believe some of the Motown acts had Christmas Albums. I know Kenny G had a Christmas Album. I remember see him at Chastain one summer day when he was played a couple of tunes off the Album which was either just released or was soon to be released. I would also have to scope out the tunes from smooth Jazz 101/100 when they go Christmas.
It is a good strategy if you are Hot AC or border on Hot AC like B 98.5 does. I think there are many stations who does this. It used to be what ALL stations (not AOR) did before the onslaught of all Christmas Music began after 9/11.
More specifically, to Roddy's comment, in other markets with stations that go all-Christmas, have those stations experienced a ratings slump after the holidays when listeners are slow to return? Is this unique to Atlanta/B98.5 or has this been seen in other markets/stations?
Wondering if the "hotter" the AC, the more of a post-holiday slump there is. As B has gotten hotter over the years, maybe that's what started causing the problem.
Roddy F had an excellent article on the topic of Christmas music and the dilemma stations faced when deciding when or if to flip to 24/7 holiday tunes. I do not remember where that article was as it was written in 2012 on a site he owned. Perhaps Roddy can provide a link as it is a good read.
Thanks for the mention. I haven't posted an Atlanta Airwave Action column in many years, and unfortunately that site no longer exists.
Hot AC tends to skew younger than mainstream AC. And the Hot AC mom likely has younger children. You'd think that Christmas would be a no brainer but the tactic seems to perform better with mainstream AC and their target a 40 year old woman. Of course Christmas stations tend to also an audience of well over 55 as well.