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Will Christmas come to Rochester?

S

scooterodell

Guest
I read on fybush.com of several stations across upstate that have made the holiday flip... but none yet in Rochester. Today, I stumbled across this fascinating little tidbit:

http://www.warm1013.com/onair/holiday-gift-of-music-pre.shtml

Aside from Sunny 102 (not really a Rochester station given it's coverage), is it possible that there will be no full-time Christmas station in Rochester this year?
 
Could be we'll be spared all Santa, all the time this year. I'm no Grinch but too much of a good thing is really, well, too much.

If there IS a candidate for an all-holiday music flip, it might be Drive 100.5. It is, after all, the most consistent under-performer of all the full Class B signals in town, and has the least to lose. Two kinds of stations make the flip to the Santa format in most markets; those that are at heart soft-rock/softer AC stations that find the format most consistent with their target demos (35-64 men & women), and those that are on the cusp of a major format change, want to blow away whatever old audience they have and grab some listeners and some holiday retail ad business before migrating to their new format after New Year's Day. Warm 101 clearly isn't going all-Santa this year, just mixing holiday music in with their current format--a good alternate choice. So that leaves someone else in one of the other groups (either Entercom or Clear Channel) to make the flip. All the other full coverage FMs in both groups are strong enough that setting aside their standard formats would cost them more than it would gain. So by process of elimination, that kind of leaves the Drive as the best candidate by default.
 
I'll be shocked if somebody isn't ho-ho-hoing it out by Black Friday. I could see Stephens taking either Fickle or The Zone that way. If a format flip is in the offing, the odds increase.
 
I was wondering if they would do a full time Christmas this year since they are now owned by a different company. It doesn't surprise me. I like a station that goes all Christmas.
 
This is entirely speculation, but is it possible that WARM et al did not get front-line sponsorship for their full time flips and therefore isn't doing them?

I have not been a big listener to all holiday formats in the past, but I seem to dimly recall that the "Holiday Gift of Music" last year mentioned a sponsor right in the on air tag lines. And there's no mention of a sponsor in the web page noted above.
 
I don't see Stephens going Christmas on either WFKL or WZNE. It would undermine their "Holiday Gift of Music" on WRMM, limited though it may be.

Sunny is CC's Christmas station... adding 100.5 at this point would seem like too much... then again, it's CC. Who knows? I'm amazed that they've stuck with country this long on 107.3!
 
"Sunny is CC's Christmas station... adding 100.5 at this point would seem like too much... then again, it's CC. Who knows?"

Sunny's hard to hear beyond Ontario County and maybe the southern part of Wayne. That leaves over 80% of the market uncovered by a Santa format, so the opportunity's there. 100.5 gets in everyplace in the market, so it's the logical choice in the Clear Channel group--and nobody else has a full-market coverage underperformer, so no one else has any particular reason to do a seasonal flip.
 
Normally, I'd think that Stephens would go all-Christmas with Warm. The reason I thought that they might go with either Fickle or Zone is because they may use it to flip one of those formats. Christmas music would clear out most of the old listeners, and allow them to come back in January with Classic Hits or another format that's a better fit for their "Christian" roots. If that's the case, I'd think that Zone would be the one to go.
 
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