London radio for Christmas

[Mark Roberts]

Yep, all-Christmas here, too: Magic Radio (105.4) is doing it. BBC Radio 2 and Capital Radio (95.8) are also slipping in a couple of Christmas tunes each hour, and Greatest Hits Radio (105.8) is featuring “Christmas party anthems” at the top of each hour, though not all of those tunes are strictly Christmas-oriented.

The high streets are all decorated and the Christmas promotions are on. December 1 seems to be the demarcation point for Christmasy things, but I don’t know when the radio stations started special programming. I don’t have a DAB radio, so I can’t tell you what’s going on there.

Having sunset at around 4 pm may add to the mood, too.

 

[fybush]

Yep, all-Christmas here, too: Magic Radio (105.4) is doing it. BBC Radio 2 and Capital Radio (95.8) are also slipping in a couple of Christmas tunes each hour, and Greatest Hits Radio (105.8) is featuring “Christmas party anthems” at the top of each hour, though not all of those tunes are strictly Christmas-oriented.

The high streets are all decorated and the Christmas promotions are on. December 1 seems to be the demarcation point for Christmasy things, but I don’t know when the radio stations started special programming. I don’t have a DAB radio, so I can’t tell you what’s going on there.

Having sunset at around 4 pm may add to the mood, too.

I was last in London in 2017, at the beginning of November, and (a) it was already dark obnoxiously early and (b) the holiday lights were up in the usual spots, on Regent Street and so forth. They weren't doing Christmas music on the radio that early, though.

 

[Mark Roberts]

I was last in London in 2017, at the beginning of November, and (a) it was already dark obnoxiously early and (b) the holiday lights were up in the usual spots, on Regent Street and so forth. They weren't doing Christmas music on the radio that early, though.

Interestingly, Black Friday is a little bit of a thing here, though apparently not as much as we found in the Netherlands, where some stores were even advertising “Black Week”. As I type this, I’m hearing a Black Friday radio ad…for Amazon. Oh, another one: from Virgin Media, flogging specials on high-speed Internet access.

Still, given that many Christmas traditions in the United States have origins in the UK, it isn’t surprising to see those traditions flourish in the British capital.

 

[Mark Roberts]

I was last in London in 2017, at the beginning of November, and (a) it was already dark obnoxiously early and (b) the holiday lights were up in the usual spots, on Regent Street and so forth. They weren't doing Christmas music on the radio that early, though.

By the way, after the main 10 pm news on BBC1 TV each night, there’s a 5-minute local segment, introduced by a montage of scenes from the city being covered. Monday night, December 2, the montage for London changed to one with a Christmas theme.

It’s not necessarily associated with broadcasting, but I’ll also note that a large Christmas tree was being erected at Trafalgar Square today. Taking note of all these data points, I think it’s this week that the Christmas season has gone into full swing in London.

 

[Miss Tuned]

Yep, all-Christmas here, too: Magic Radio (105.4) is doing it. BBC Radio 2 and Capital Radio (95.8) are also slipping in a couple of Christmas tunes each hour, and Greatest Hits Radio (105.8) is featuring “Christmas party anthems” at the top of each hour, though not all of those tunes are strictly Christmas-oriented.

The high streets are all decorated and the Christmas promotions are on. December 1 seems to be the demarcation point for Christmasy things, but I don’t know when the radio stations started special programming. I don’t have a DAB radio, so I can’t tell you what’s going on there.

Having sunset at around 4 pm may add to the mood, too.

Heart Xmas started on national DAB radio on 25 September - it always starts strangely early:

Global brings back Heart Xmas on DAB and revives Smooth Christmas

Merry Christmas! @Global has launched two festive radio stations today

radiotoday.co.uk

My work Christmas party is this week, but it seems too early for me, I've barely thought about Christmas. Most of them tend to take place in the third week of December. "Mad Friday" was a thing prior to COVID, but the world has calmed down a little in the intervening years. Our celebration is in the afternoon and consists of food, party games and a quiz.

Where I live in the north of England, official sunset is around 3:40pm, but it's starting to go dark before then. It's dark when you go to work in the morning, dark when you drive home. Endless tired-out Xmas tunes and high-pressure "buy buy buy" commercials don't improve the mood, I tend to switch to music streaming.

 

[Mark Roberts]

The Sony arrived:

It's a little larger than I expected. It's clearly intended to be a DAB radio with FM as an afterthought. Of course, in Denver, all I can check out right now is FM, which is fairly good but many of the Chinese radios (Tecsun, XHDATA, Qodosen) now on the market easily surpass it in reception. But, man, is it bare-bones: just nine presets; tuning is only with skew buttons, the big knob is the volume control; there's a clock and a sleep timer and no alarm; and that's about it. I would hope that newer radios would be more competitive as far as features go. DAB tuning runs with some kind of autoscan function but of course it picks nothing up in the US. In any event, it runs on 4 AA batteries, so I can put it in checked luggage, and it was $40 (about £30) used so it's a cheap entry point for something that I will use only on trips to Europe.