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First Station to go all Christmas music

The new WDOK logo may just be for the holiday run. Are they still using "Soft Rock 102.1" on the air?

I wouldn't jump to any conclusions until after they exit Christmas music mode, which will probably start on-air the day after Thanksgiving and end a day or two after Christmas.
 
Oddly enough, the Christmas music feed linked on WDOK's site isn't even their own.

It's "103.7 The Christmas Channel", a feed from CBS Radio AC sister station KVIL/103.7 "Lite FM" in Dallas. No, I'm not kidding, right down to the liners. No sign of WDOK, in the graphics or on the feed.

KVIL must have put their feed up early, and offered it throughout the chain.

Like WDOK, KVIL is still in non-holiday mode on air. In fact, there's no link to that "103.7 The Christmas Channel" feed on the main KVIL website!

http://1037litefm.radio.com/

You can only access it from the "You may also like..." link on the KVIL Listen Live player.
 
From what radio friends tell me...the really early Christmas stations aren't doing nearly as well in the monthlies the past couple years as they did years back.

When all-Christmas music happens more than 2 weeks before December 25th, my MP3 player is extra busy. Enough is enough weeks and weeks and weeks in advance. (And, I love Christmas).
 
OhioMediaWatch said:
The new WDOK logo may just be for the holiday run. Are they still using "Soft Rock 102.1" on the air?
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For all practical purposes, the station is just called "102.1 WDOK."

The "Soft Rock 102.1" logo dates back to when WDOK significantly de-emphasized their call letters in 1999-2000 (during Dave P.'s first stint as PD), and for some reason has never been officially changed or replaced until now.
 
Tim said:
From what radio friends tell me...the really early Christmas stations aren't doing nearly as well in the monthlies the past couple years as they did years back.

When all-Christmas music happens more than 2 weeks before December 25th, my MP3 player is extra busy. Enough is enough weeks and weeks and weeks in advance. (And, I love Christmas).
Click to expand...

Remember nobody forces anyone to listen to the Christmas music stations but lets face it there are a huge amount of people that do enjoy listening to it. I think a reasonable amount of time is the week of Thanksgiving or the day after Thanksgiving. I think 107.3 is going to do the all Christmas format soon as well.
 
WDOK began to phase out "Soft Rock 102.1" when PPM arrived. Jocks and liners have been simply "102.1 WDOK" for some time now. I'm glad they finally updated the logo.
 
CleveRadioInsider said:
I think 107.3 is going to do the all Christmas format soon as well.
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107.3 is staying as-is until the deal actually closes. The tentative date for THAT is in early December or so.
 
I am still surprised that 101.7 has not gone Christmas music yet. In years past they usually have been playing Christmas music by now. I guess Keith Kennedy has not loaded up the Christmas music yet ;D
 
We've never gone this early with Christmas on My 101.7. Typically we go the week prior to Thanksgiving, but there is no rush this year. With temps in the 60s this week its kind of hard to start playing "Let it Snow". The audience isn't there in spirit yet. We do have Christmas music channels from iheartradio on my1017.com. If somebody wishes to get holly jolly, knock yourself out.

-KK
 
Iluvmusic98 said:
As of today! Dayton and Columbus Stations switched to Xmas:

www.945litefm.com www.oldies933fm.com
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Historically, Columbus' FM 93.3 (for years WLZT) has always struck VERY early in the Ho-Ho-Ho game, and has usually led to solid bounces. This year is no different.

The rest of the year for 93.3, however, has long been the subject for criticism in the Columbus boards.
 
It's been my experience that going all Xmas oldies this early is quite fatiguing. Under former WMJI PD's (Gorman, Sanders) four-five Xmas tunes would be played per hour beginning after Thanksgiving and then go 24/7 Xmas three weeks out.

With that said CC CLE needed a station to pick up the All Xmas tag (to compete with WDOK) now that 106-5 is adult hits and not even a year into the new format. WMJI was the only one left. Those disenfranchised under 45 will most likely go to Lake. So, CC still wins. Will be interesting to see how WMJI's PPM for Nov and Dec shake out.
 
WMJI won't be hurt in the ratings by this flip because they are such an established station. WDOK also won't be hurt by this either. It is a good move to have the stations that are high in the ratings do the Christmas flip.
 
CleveRadioInsider said:
WMJI won't be hurt in the ratings by this flip because they are such an established station. WDOK also won't be hurt by this either. It is a good move to have the stations that are high in the ratings do the Christmas flip.
Click to expand...

Right----since WMJI in particular will lose a LOT of its core audience as of today....replaced by the folks(mainly soccer moms)who wanna hear the holiday music 24/7 a long while ahead of Christmas...so their ratings will stay the same, tho with different people listening to them.

Now---where will the oldies audience go? In Akron, some will go to WAKR til they start the holiday tunes, others may try The Lake for newer oldies, and many will exercise option 3: mp3 player/CDs/satellite/internet/nothing at all. And the question is, how many will return to WMJI from option 3 come December 26th?
 
Personally I would rather see these stations start on Thanksgiving and go till New Years Day instead of starting so early and then abruptly ending on December 26th at 12am.
 
Personally, I don't want to hear any Christmas music until the day after Thanksgiving and then, I would like to hear 1-2 tunes per hour mixed in with a stations playlist. On Christmas Eve or Christmas Day I don't have a problem if a station is all Xmas for those 2 days but more than that is too much for me.

For this reason, bye-bye Majic 105.7 and hello WAKR, Sirius/XM and CD's/mp3's. Will I return to WMJI once the Christmas music is over? It depends on what I find between now and then. I've already found myself listening to WMJI less and less lately with AT40 and Tom Kent's request show being about the only programs of interest to me that I enjoyed listening to. I'm tired of the twin spin weekends and I would think Majic could come up with something more interesting like when they used to do all 70's on Sunday or something like the top 500 on Memorial Day like they did a couple of years ago.
 
My feelings on the matter is with Christmas songs vs regular rotation. For a couple of months you hear the same Christmas songs, but for the rest of the year you hear the same songs as well. The variety is just not there. If I never heard Don't Stop Believin by Journey again it would be too soon.
 
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