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Now 97.5's 77 Songs of Christmas

S

Soon Yi CIV.V

Guest
Hate to beat a dead reindeer but yes.com's Top 100 list for WNUW consists of only 77 songs. The list updates every night at midnight, IIRC. Does that mean 10 days into the format, they're only spinning 77 titles?! (I've moved on to my iPod at this point.) Isn't that only like three or four hours of music being rotated about?

And does anyone think B101 is going to keep sprinkling occasional Christmas songs in and not go all-Christmas until Christmas Eve? Seems suicidal...but it's one way to make sure 97.5 doesn't flip back to AC as soon as B flips to all-Christmas.
 
Nah, the B has been clear in their intent to go all ho-ho-ho when they're ready, but this past weekend reminded me of the "old days" of my youth when I could enjoy both my favorite 'regular' songs and Christmas tunes. :)
 
Soon Yi CIV.V said:
Isn't that only like three or four hours of music being rotated about?
Click to expand...

Maybe they're taking the Q102 approach to music programming... 165 spins/week of "O Holy Night" versus 165 spins/week of Kate Perry.
 
Soon Yi CIV.V said:
Seems suicidal...
Click to expand...

Although you mention suicidal with regards to B101 maybe waiting to go all Christmas, I think it is somewhat suicidal for WNUW to play so few songs. There is no way that they will hang on to listeners by the end of the season. I love Christmas music, but even I got terribly sick of Now's repitition a week after it started. It doesn't seem like they have any intention of doing the Christmas format right if this garbage of 77 songs continues. At this point, I think it would have been better to just keep the AC music on NOW and let B101 do all Christmas.

If NOW stays the way it is and B does jump in with their regular Christmas playlist, I would bet money that B would annihilate NOW because of a better signal and a wider variety of songs.
 
It's possible that yes.com has a Bad Data System. Maybe all songs aren't being picked up, due to alternate mixes/edits/etc.
 
Every single time I've turned them on, they're playing Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You".
 
PhillyWatch said:
Every single time I've turned them on, they're playing Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You".
Click to expand...

It's not even worth fiddling with the antenna anymore to listen to 97.5. If I want Christmas Radio here in Central Jersey, I stream WODS/Oldies 103.3 in Boston through my computer. They just recently upgraded their stream to 128Kpbs, and it sounds amazing. Much better than FM radio or the subpar 64Kpbs streams most CBS Radio stations are putting out right now.

WNUW's Christmas format is terribly disappointing. I'd even subject myself to SIRIUS Holiday (SIRIUS's horrible excuse for a Christmas channel which made its final appearance last year). Luckily, Holly comes to both SIRIUS and XM on Wednesday, so I'll not have to deal with SIRIUS Holiday with their unfamiliar versions of terrible songs.

For those in Philly who want it on their actual radio, I would recommend just waiting it out. It will be much more rewarding when B101 kicks in with a better variety of Christmas tunes. We here in the NYC metro usually have to wait until before just a little bit before Thanksgiving (sometimes the day itself) until WLTW changes over.
 
I listened to the Boston Christmas stations (103.3 and 105.7) and they are on par with Sunny 104.5 in terms of music variety (and lack of crappy covers by CHR artists). And the liners between songs are much better.
I guess I have to complain about interference from WPRB and WCHR preventing me from getting those Boston stations :)
 
DStroyer said:
It's possible that yes.com has a Bad Data System. Maybe all songs aren't being picked up, due to alternate mixes/edits/etc.
Click to expand...

Note that when they first flipped to all-holiday hits, the only song from WNUW that registered on Yes.com was John Lennon's "Happy Xmas".

"77 Songs of Christmas"... sounds like a stunt that an amateur Internet radio station run by a Phillies beer vendor would be doing...
 
Re: Now 97.5's Hot Hits Christmas

It is definitely possible that yes.com is missing a title or two. It happens occasionally even when stations are in their regular formats...but once stations flip to all-Christmas, yes.com tends to only pick up very few titles (the John Lennon song being one of them) until someone over there makes some adjustments. After that switch is hit, yes.com usually does a very good job of tracking the titles. It's still displaying 77 titles. If it is missing any, I wouldn't think it's any more than 5 or so. So maybe they're playing 82 songs. Still not enough! :)

I don't have my car set up to play nice with my iPod so I still listen to WNUW in the car. (Every year, almost 100% of my Christmas radio listening occurs in the car; not at home or at work.) WNUW seems to be slowly evolving their all-Christmas format with additional titles and imaging. And even though they're playing very few songs, I do prefer them to a lot of the stuff B101 has had in heavy rotation during recent years.

WNUW is working a bit slowly but (IMHO) they're heading in the right direction with this format. Hopefully they're still working on adds because they could use about 300 more titles!
 
There are not 300 Christmas titles viable for rotation unless you want to begin playing artists/versions/titles of the standards that no one has ever heard. Rule number one for any format is be familiar and play just the hits.
 
LasVegasRadioJunky said:
There are not 300 Christmas titles viable for rotation unless you want to begin playing artists/versions/titles of the standards that no one has ever heard. Rule number one for any format is be familiar and play just the hits.
Click to expand...

Alright, maybe I was exaggerating slightly. haha.
 
I tuned in Now's Christmas format for the first time at any length today. I did hear 2 traditional carols in a row (even Sunny didn't do that) and also some traditional artists and even a drop from the 'Rudolph' cartoon, so hopefully they will add songs and be the replacement Sunny fans have wanted. I really don't care for the dropped in song titles/artists like B101 does, but I guess that's part of the format now.
 
I also noticed that they have some holiday-themed clips now. I'm glad they're thinking in terms of giving the presentation some personality. A lot of stations seem to like putting on a jukebox with the same dry liners and I was afraid 97.5 was gonna be another one of those.

If this isn't just a one-year stunt, hopefully they'll change the imaging up a bit as the years go by. (How many years have we been hearing Janet and Mrs. Roper on B101 talking about that plastic Christmas tree that doubles as an air freshener?! Geesh!) I do think I heard them say something like "Philadelphia's new home for the holidays" so maybe they intend to make this part of their branding like Sunny was doing all those years.
 
The playlist is definitely wider than it was on Halloween. And they're no longer using the Phillies as the excuse for the Christmas music.
 
All signs point to B101 changing to holiday hits 24/7 within 72 hours...
 
Although I'm sure B101 would love to not have to flip until the afternoon of the 26th, I always kinda suspected they'd go on the 14th if 97.5 stayed with the format. But now that 97.5 is widening the playlist a bit (I listened this morning and I heard songs they didn't yet have song tags for!), I really can't blame them. Out of curiosity, what are these signs of which you speak?
 
I've listened to both stations now and find I am liking 97.5 more. It seems like there are less commercials and I like the liberally used sound bites from classics like Rudolph, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, It's a Wonderful Life and I Love Lucy. I love kids but 101.1's "Ask the Experts" with little kids voicing their innocent take on Christmas seems a little stale...are they using the same clips from years gone by?; if so, update it to make it fresh. For both stations, I'd like to hear some different songs, if only a couple times a day, than what surveys say are the top vote-getters. I miss from Sunny's old line up Vince Gill's Let There Be Peace on Earth and John Tesh's We Fall Down. WJBR years ago used to play Rosemary Clooney's Count Your Blessings. Part of the fun of all these songs, besides the seasonal interest, is the ability to hear Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Nat King Cole, Burl Ives, Brenda Lee, and all those crooners of days gone by. I love being at the gas station or grocery store parking lot and hear the Christmas music I'm also listening to as a car pulls up and then see the most unlikely man get out to fill up or park, who hears it coming out of your car and you meet eyes and smile. Yes, you can hear this type of music on your cd player, but having it go out over the airwaves is almost a communal experience.
 
South Jersey native...in radio in Oklahoma now...enjoy reading what's going on back home.

Per Nick's "using the Phils as an excuse"...and tying that to Christmas...can Santa bring us CC soon?
(No, not the radio company...Sabathia!) [forgive me for straying off the path here...]

[Also...pardon me for writing in Boomer Sooner colors....]
 
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