When is it too early?

[johnbasalla]

How early can you go to an All-Christmas format and still have it be successful? When is it too early? Some stations went all-Christmas before Thanksgiving this year. How far before Thanksgiving dare they go?

 

[new_friends_gr]

Some stations went all-Christmas before Thanksgiving this year. How far before Thanksgiving dare they go?

This is nothing new. For at least the past 8-10 years, there have been AC stations in a lot of markets that have flipped to all-Christmas well before Thanksgiving. Some stations do it November 1 - right as soon as Halloween is over. In my mind, that's insanity. A lot of stations seem to flip somewhere around November 11-15.

If a station MUST be all-Christmas, they should at least wait until after Thanksgiving. As I've said before, I wish stations would introduce Christmas music in moderation. One song an hour in early November, two songs per hour the following week, and so on. Back in the '80s, the idea of a station playing 24/7 Christmas music anytime outside of December 24-25 was completely unheard of. Now it's the norm unfortunately.

 

[johnbasalla]

Christmas music in November is too early for me too, however I'm on the losing side of the ledger. Unscientific, but compelling, occurances tell me that. Where I work, one of the male co-workers always has sports-talk on if he has anything on. Just a few days ago, I popped into his office and he had the radio on one of the all-Christmas music stations and was "jammin'" to "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" by Brenda Lee. There are three stations doing all Christmas in my area, and the station he had on was the one that went all-Christmas first... and that is not the station that has done all-Christmas every year for the past 5 or 6 years. Then another male co-worker said he has to listen to the Christmas music, because that's what the wife wants. These are people around 30 years old.