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Kost christmas will it start early like kez in phoenix?

TheBigA said:
Depends on the station. Most of the iHeart stations run a national Christmas feed. But yes, all the music is there already.

No need to reinvent the Christmas wheel every year.
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I believe what they get are Premium Choice libraries and production elements; they can either voice liners locally or get someone in another market to voice them (unless they are going to reuse the ones from last year). The music will be inserted in the local station clocks, with adjustments for local morning shows and the like.
 
But david how could the revisions to the music be done earlier in the year when say they want to ad a song r two from this year and the new christmas music for the year hasnt dropped till closer to the holidays?

If they run a national feed how does that work if the individual stations want to ad tunes to there playlist?
 
hotpatrick2004 said:
But david how could the revisions to the music be done earlier in the year when say they want to ad a song r two from this year and the new christmas music for the year hasnt dropped till closer to the holidays?

If they run a national feed how does that work if the individual stations want to ad tunes to there playlist?
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They don't tend to add new songs from year to year. It looks, in fact, like they wait until the year following if they add at all.

Obviously, if a break-out hit happens, they can always insert it. But if they do research, it is likely done mid-December and only done to know what to do the next year.
 
hotpatrick2004 said:
But david how could the revisions to the music be done earlier in the year when say they want to ad a song r two from this year and the new christmas music for the year hasnt dropped till closer to the holidays?

If they run a national feed how does that work if the individual stations want to ad tunes to there playlist?
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I don't think this is a national real-time feed. I think this is a library and set of workparts, just as shows like Seacrest's are done.

The local stations many not even have the authority to add songs to the playlist, but I do not know that as a fact.

If they research, they likely do it in one market and apply the list nationally.
 
TheBigA said:
Some of these stations don't have local morning shows or the need to localize other than the spots.
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But they may be taking a syndicated morning show... Seacreast is on a number of the AC stations in the group that go all-Christmas... and they have to have local clocks built around a higher amount of talks and additional breaks.

As I said, I believe the music is curated on a Zetta / Selector server, and is downloaded to the local system on demand in November. The clocks and the actual Selector scheduling will be done at each station or by a scheduling specialist who does the specific logs for each station.

From my listening to KOST last year, there appear to be dayparted songs and different blends of modern and traditional in different times of the day. Each station would have to do that for their time zone, which means that the music is played locally.
 
I programmed Christmas music for a #1 AC in my market for years. New Christmas music wasn't even considered unless there was something very unusual about it, with a strong buzz, etc. The format exists basically with traditional and more contemporary titles. And by contemporary I don't mean "new", I mean anything from the 80's, 90's, and beyond. Even Elton's "Step Into Christmas" was considered contemporary! At my station we were very careful to keep the two apart by atleast two songs. Pretty simple? No, not really. The flow was terribly difficult to measure, especially when transitioning. But the clear answer was good imaging, a bit longer than non-Christmas imaging to deflect the major change in tempo and feel. And there was always that religious traditional song that might get scheduled after "Grandma got run over"...a quick eye check of Selector was indeed important!

All that said, I never really understood how Christmas music could be played before Thanksgiving. But, I am not the audience. I have since learned there is a passionate audience for this, and that is why it almost always wins. Not only on radio, but has anyone checked out cable tv's Hallmark Channel? They get started in July! Then go all in by October. If this didn't work for them, they wouldn't do it. Same with radio.
 
Thanks to everyone that answered my question. I wonder why santa radio never worked for 94.7 the wave. They tried it couple years 5 r 6 years ago but not anymore. But it does work for go country 105? Or it seems to.

I read this article once programming an all christmas station isnt as easy as it sounds. You have to have just the right mix. Not to much religious christmas. Not to much this or that. And you always have people that call the station and complain. Its very fascinating. I had read that kost goin all christmas the very first time grew out of 9/11 that year.

Whats interesting bout go country is they dont play all country christmas music. There playlist is similar to kost. And last year if u all recall kost went well past christmas last year with the santa radio. Will they this year? Time will tell...
 
hotpatrick2004 said:
I wonder why santa radio never worked for 94.7 the wave. They tried it couple years 5 r 6 years ago but not anymore. But it does work for go country 105? Or it seems to.
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Here's what I can say about KKGO. They get their best ratings of the year playing Christmas music at a time when other country stations get their worst ratings of the year playing country music. As I said earlier, I have every reason to believe they will flip to Christmas at the end of November.

Based on what I read in this past week's Country Aircheck, it's possible you may see more country radio stations around the country flip to Christmas this year...to inoculate themselves from the annual holiday drop.
 
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ChannelFlipper said:
This is corporate radio thinking at its finest.
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Actually, it's a quarter century of experience and experimentation and research being put into practice.

Everything they have learned at the most successful set of Christmas stations is put into the package that iHeart gives to each station; it's a Lego set with all the right parts and none of the wrong ones.
 
TheBigA said:
And year after year the people of Los Angeles love every minute of it. They are giving your friends and neighbors what they want.
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I realize it's anecdotal, but NONE of my wife and family, friends, colleagues at work, neighbors on my little cul de sac, and any Facebook friends listen to KOST especially during the XMAS holidays, I ASK.
 
SuperRadioFan said:
I realize it's anecdotal, but NONE of my wife and family, friends, colleagues at work, neighbors on my little cul de sac, and any Facebook friends listen to KOST especially during the XMAS holidays, I ASK.
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That's OK.

The 4,500,000 people 6+ in LA and the 800,000 in the IE who did listen will be enough to keep them in business...
 
SuperRadioFan said:
Hahaha correct, CF! The phrase "clean and antiseptic" comes to mind.
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No problem. If you don't like that kind of radio, listen to KPFK. That's the complete opposite of clean and antiseptic.

SuperRadioFan said:
I realize it's anecdotal, but NONE of my wife and family, friends, colleagues at work, neighbors on my little cul de sac, and any Facebook friends listen to KOST especially during the XMAS holidays, I ASK.
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This may come as a shock to you, but there is no radio station in LA, and in fact no radio station in the country that gets a 100 share of the audience. The best any station in LA gets might be a 10 share. That's 10% of the listening audience. So your family and friends don't have to listen for KOST to achieve killer ratings. They probably NEVER listen. That doesn't matter. Everyone else does.
 
I listen at christmas to kost and go country. I flip back and forth. And my favorite formats are chr and alternative rock.

Couple years ago during kost christmasing i was shocked. Kost did play a indie rock song by the shins. The song they played was wonderful christmas.
 
hotpatrick2004 said:
I listen at christmas to kost and go country. I flip back and forth. And my favorite formats are chr and alternative rock.

Couple years ago during kost christmasing i was shocked. Kost did play a indie rock song by the shins. The song they played was wonderful christmas.
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This sort of goes to my point above. You know, someone, somewhere, had to make an individual (that is, most likely not a corporate pre-approved choice) to play "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer". And it was awesome - seasonal, funny and cute (unless you are a Grandma without a sense of humor) and not the same shlock they were playing for the rest of their Holiday music at the time. I think it was the 80s or 90a when it came out and I loved it then and still love it now.

But in today's corporate world, where we don't need no stinkin' new wheels when we already have the old one from last year, which had been used for years and years before, a new one-off song by a non-major label artist like that could never get on because, well, "Corporate already told us which songs to play and its not on the approved list. But please enjoy another Holiday treasure from... Mariah Carey!"

I was never into punk rock that much, but Mariah Carey is why it existed.
 
TheBigA said:
No problem. If you don't like that kind of radio, listen to KPFK. That's the complete opposite of clean and antiseptic.



This may come as a shock to you, but there is no radio station in LA, and in fact no radio station in the country that gets a 100 share of the audience. The best any station in LA gets might be a 10 share. That's 10% of the listening audience. So your family and friends don't have to listen for KOST to achieve killer ratings. They probably NEVER listen. That doesn't matter. Everyone else does.
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Dude, it's not a shock to me, c'mon I spent 23 years in the radio industry so I know there's no 10 shares these days. Not gonna debate, just want you to know, geeez
 
TheBigA said:
This may come as a shock to you, but there is no radio station in LA, and in fact no radio station in the country that gets a 100 share of the audience. The best any station in LA gets might be a 10 share. That's 10% of the listening audience. So your family and friends don't have to listen for KOST to achieve killer ratings. They probably NEVER listen. That doesn't matter. Everyone else does.
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Who's "everyone"?? You mean some. 10% of the listening audience is not everyone. MOST people have their own playlists or collections they access for their musical enjoyment, whether at Christmas or in June and that includes me. People want to hear the tunes, not commercials and other talk interrupting their enjoyment, so yes, it matters very much so.

I can only imagine shares dropping even more over time as people find and continue to access their musical favorites without the interruptions and limitations that current radio provides. I mean who wants to hear the same 30 Christmas songs and then a block of junk for 15 minutes??

I can sympathize with SuperRadioFan.
 
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