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Philly (sort of) gets a 2nd All-Christmas Station

WSTW has a very usable signal in Philly, and considering the only Xmas in Philly is B101 (now with JBR replaced by the God-squad) it makes sense for WSTW to try and snag a bit of B101's audience. Figure they do their homework, learn when B101 goes to commercials, and set their clock up accordingly.
 
I listened for awhile yesterday. The mix was pretty good and I liked the fact there was a "voice" on the air selling the product unlike so many stations today that just play music and sweepers on the weekend. WSTW was trying to be more than just a Christmas jukebox.
 
WSTW's tower is north of Wilmington. It's in Delaware but just a couple of miles from the Pennsylvania line. So there's plenty of coverage of the Philly market, just like 99.5 WJBR once did. The station uses the slogan "The Delaware Valley's New Christmas Music Station."

Actually the folks in Philadelphia can pick up several Christmas stations. In addition to 101.1 WBEB and 93.7 WSTW, there's WLEV 100.7 Allentown and 102.5 WRFY Reading. WRFY is owned by iHeart.

I don't remember WRFY, also Hot AC, going all-Christmas in years past. Like WSTW, is this new for Christmas 2025?
 
What I find interesting is that their Christmas mix is more heavy on the traditional standards and "oldies" era music than B101 or other typical AC Christmas playlists these days. Which is totally fine for my personal tastes, but it seems like a curious choice for a Hot AC.
 
mjb1124 said:
What I find interesting is that their Christmas mix is more heavy on the traditional standards and "oldies" era music than B101 or other typical AC Christmas playlists these days. Which is totally fine for my personal tastes, but it seems like a curious choice for a Hot AC.
Click to expand...
WJBR always had a pretty good mix of old and new. Perhaps cluster mate Charlie Maxx at WXCY had a hand in this. She programmed Christmas at WJBR for a number of years.
 
It's been my observation in areas where there are more than one all Christimas stations one seems to have a very tight Playlist while the other has a bigger variety.

Where I live the big Audacy owned AC formatted station that does the all Christmas thing seems to play the same 15 songs over and over again. The exception being on Christmas Eve when they do 36 Hours of commercial free Christmas Music.

Now there's a small AC station that's on the fringe of the market. They're owned by a small company that owns around 2 dozen stations and rhey have a Christmas music Playlist that has more variety.

However for whatever reason neither one gives any love to Boney M. It's rare to hear "Mary's Boy Child." And none play Boney M's version of "Feliz Navidad," which i didn't even know was a thing until I saw these videos on IG that used that version of "Feliz Navidad. "

I also heard a different version of "Feliz Navidad" on one of our Spanish language stations while scanning the dial recently
 
radiofan2023 said:
The FCC's and FCC info has links to them, just search by the station call letters and select "Day Pattern" or "Night Pattern" or both, on the left hand side:

FCCInfo Search

FCC Info is a Radio and Television Station Search Engine provided by Cavell, Mertz & Associates, Inc.
www.fccinfo.com
Click to expand...
And yet there are always reception anomalies, little patches where stations that shouldn't be coming in at all or figure to be, at best, deep fringe signals, provide consistent, clear reception. The parking lot of the apartment building I used to live in in Meriden, CT, was one of those places. The 250-watt signal from the oldies station translator on Long Island at 98.1 (I'm in a hurry, don't remember the calls of either the station or the translator and don't have the time to look them up.) was loud and clear on my ordinary car radio while I was in the lot, but disappeared just a few hundred yards from the driveway, not to reappear until I was at least 15 miles south on Rt. 5 or I-91. You look at any map and say, "That's impossible." But it was, I swear. Even here in Vermont, I pick up FMs whose pattern (R-L or FCC) indicates that I shouldn't be hearing. Since neither R-L nor the FCC has boots on the ground (and hands on a receiver) over every square inch of American terrain, the patterns should not be treated as gospel but rather as estimates based on the extrapolation of reported and projected data.
 
This is completely anecdotal but I was at a Christmas party last night and I spoke with about 5 people who have noticed what I’ve been thinking over the last couple of weeks and that is B101’s Christmas music this year has been bizarre to say the least.

They’re playing many contemporary tunes (makes sense for them) mixed with 70-75 year old songs from Gene Autry, Bing Crosby and Perry Como. They’re playing a handful of songs from the 70’s and 80’s but not much in between except for an occasional track from Bobby Helms, Andy Williams and Brenda Lee. Some of the biggest Christmas tunes ever recorded are from the late 50’s and early 60’s. My question is where’s Elvis, The Beach Boys, Four Seasons, etc.? They aren’t even playing much (if anything) from Phil Spector’s album which many music enthusiasts have called the greatest Christmas album of all time. 2 years ago Cher released a fantastic Christmas album of new songs and covers of old songs with duets from Stevie Wonder and Darlene Love but I haven’t heard one track from the album on B101.

They obviously aren’t worried about older demos since they’re playing pop music from the early 50’s so it seems to me that they’re being remiss by not including some of the great songs of the late 50’s and early 60’s. These songs are certainly more in tune with a Hot AC format than anything recorded shortly after World War II.
 


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