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WODS/WROR 2008 Christmas Music

Since it is Oct. 23, and in about a week, it will be Nov. 1, when do you guys think that WODS and WROR will switch to their ALL Christmas Music Format? I think it will happen Nov. 3 this year. Does anyone remember when it happened last year? If I recall correctly, it was something like Nov. 12th.
 
It was on the 12th last year which was on a Monday, so I think it'll happen on the 10th this year which is also on a Monday. By the way, on the Oldies website, they have a Holiday Music channel online just like Magic 106 does. It's been up since last Friday.
 
I think it's ridiculous that they start so early. Not everyone likes it and I find something else to listen to
during the holiday season.
 
Oldies 103, my favorite music station, and WROR, went all Christmas last year on Veterans Day. I thought it was absolutely ridiculous. Instead of Christmas music, they could have mixed in some patriotic music on Veteran's Day, without changing the format. And yes, it's way too early and too long to have this kind of format. At least there are alternatives in Boston like North Shore 104.9 and in Rhode Island, B101, True Oldies 790 and 88.1 WELH (plays oldies weekday afternoons). It's nice to hit a preset and pop in on these Christmas music stations to hear some, but I could not listen constantly for over two months. Can you imagine being a DJ in these stations? Unless you really love Christmas music so much, and can listen to it day after day, for over two months, I would go insane. :D I'm sure after the first few weeks, some DJs are turning down the studio monitor on some songs. ;D I like the pop Christmas songs like Elton John's Step Into Christmas, Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You, Last Christmas by Wham, Dominic The Donkey by Lou Monte, and 12 Pains of Christmas by Bob Rivers, just as much as I like the traditional ones, but they soon become tired after you've heard them a few times. I am a person who does not have much tolerance for repetition, and the Christmas playlists are tighter than the regular playlists. Anyway, regardless of what we think, they will do their Christmas thing, and at least we have alternatives to listen to for music.
 
Last year, I don't really think that WROR had planned on going all Christmas at the point they did which was about 7amish on Veteran's Day. But Oldies went all-Christmas at 530 or 6am (maybe they knew WROR was flipping and wanted to beat them). But I distinctly remember Loren Owens being pretty sarcastic about flipping to all-Christmas 6 weeks before the holiday.

The end result is...before last year's flips, both stations were my faves and I immediately dumped both, expecting to go back after Christmas. But I never really did because, in the meantime, I found Mike-FM and Worcester's The Pike.
 
The Christmas season is a potential disaster: I don't know how that might affect flips, or listener's desire to hear music when they are hanging onto their money.

But I'm sure we'll start hearing about early stations --nationally-- on Halloween.
 
radiojay1 said:
It's nice to hit a preset and pop in on these Christmas music stations to hear some, but I could not listen constantly for over two months.

I meant to say, for over a month. Hope I did not give them any ideas. :eek: I think it would be a good idea if the stations kept their regular formats and put the Christmas music either on an HD channel or seperate webcast. A little Christmas music mixed into the regular format is nice, but not total Christmas music.
 
radiojay1 said:
I meant to say, for over a month. Hope I did not give them any ideas. :eek: I think it would be a good idea if the stations kept their regular formats and put the Christmas music either on an HD channel or seperate webcast. A little Christmas music mixed into the regular format is nice, but not total Christmas music.

....except maybe on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. (They don't give you a lot of time to edit here) ;D
 
I don't mind stations starting to play it early - By early I mean maybe around the second week of November. For the first week or so, they could start mixing it in with the normal rotation, maybe a few songs an hour, depending on the station's format.

The start of Thanksgiving week, mix in a bit more, & so on. By doing it this way, we wouldn't tire of the repetition so early on...
 
I seem to recall from the studies of PPM results last year, stations in Philadelphia and Houston which went all-Christmas before Thanksgiving saw their numbers remain flat until Turkey Day, after which point they skyrocketed. If this is how other markets will play out as well, it would seem that the only reason to go all-Christmas earlier than Thanksgiving would be to beat out others in the market from doing the same - and in Boston, where both WODS and WROR are both posed to go at it again, that probably doesn't mean anything. So whereas WODS and WROR probably will not see any actual gains until Thanksgiving, expect them to flip within hours of each other when the first one goes - again.
 
The thing that always kills me is not the music format but the constant repeats of the same song. Least liked for me, is anything by Whitney Houston, and, that tiring "Domenic The Donkey" song that, apparently got so many requests(according to Karen Blake on her former afternoon show) they'd play it "at 5pm" everyday!!!

Coolest Christmas songs-Dino's "Baby it's Cold Out There", Band-Aid's "Do They Know it's Christmas?", Elton's "Steppin' Into Christmas"(Which I first ever heard Dale play on the Big 68 back mid-70's so it has some nice Oldies nostalgia to it),Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" and Wham's "Last Christmas". There are alot of cool songs that they don't play on radio, alot of good pop/New Wave stuff from 70's and 80's UK charts. Gary Glitter has a great catchy one you hear everywhere on the radio there around the holidays. There are ones by The Pogues, The Pretenders, Queen's "Thank God It's Christmas". Lots of good stuff that just doesn't get heard here despite it's by some name groups.

Ever notice NO ONE plays Cheech and Chong's "The Story of Santa and The Magic Dust" anymore? Gee I wonder why? Man, that was a MAINSTAY on PRO FM in the 70's and just about every other station. Hilarious to this day too. I think I did hear it on ZLX once....
 
zillasound said:
Band-Aid's "Do They Know it's Christmas?",

I like that song too but the problem is that it's a short song and half the song is an actual song and the other half is the same chorus that seems to last for 10 minutes:

"Feeeeeeed the World

Do they know it's Christmas time agaaaiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnn"


EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!
;D
 
I hate that stupid donkey song. Every time I hear it on WRCH (the all XMAS station in Hartford. Last year was their first all XMAS year) I was tempted to go down to their studio and delete the thing from their computer's hard drive.

The late John Jeski used to play an all-Polka version of Silver Bells on his Sunday afternoon polka show on The Giant 840 in Hartford. (The Giant 840 is the station's name in English. Their Spanish name is La Gigante. They're not big either. 1KW day and 125 watts at nite).

And I think Patti-Ann mixes in a few Polka versions of XMAS songs on her Polka show on 990 in Hartford.

Are there Polka shows in Boston and its 'burbs and if so do any of them mix in Polka XMAS songs?
 
zillasound said:
Ever notice NO ONE plays Cheech and Chong's "The Story of Santa and The Magic Dust" anymore? Gee I wonder why? Man, that was a MAINSTAY on PRO FM in the 70's and just about every other station. Hilarious to this day too. I think I did hear it on ZLX once....

That was still on WZLX last year. You'll hear it on rock stations (classic rock, active rock, etc...), not on oldies or pop hits stations.
 
Marcb...
WHUS 91.7 at UCONN, obviously NOT in the Boston burbs but streaming 24/7 at whus.org has Polka Sat. mornings 5am-9 with two seperate shows. You can ask them to play Christmas polka music...probably starting around Dec. 20th! ;D

BTW...the official Christmas season, liturgically, continues until Epiphany January 4th this year. Most folks think Christmas is just "the day."
I like to hear more Advent music until the 25th however...the God of Retail rules...hence all Christmas music for SIX WEEKS!
 
Band-aid's "Do They Know it's Christmas?" is also an 80's nostalgia song. I remember the HUGE play and hype that got when it was done. One station I was listening to, liked it so much they played it twice and then, got enough requests to play it again within the hour. "Band-Aid" recorded it in late Oct of 1984, and it was finished, mixed, engineered et al-in one weekend and slammed out to radio stations by mid-November, and record stores by Dec 1st. If memory serves me. These days it would have been on You Tube and iTunes within hours. Now, it best represents the era of the "Big-name-singer-group-charity-songs" that all followed suit for the next two years. The now-late Paul Young starts out the song and it's amazing to see the video with all the 80's fashions and hair-dos and people who looked like they just rolled out of bed(apparently they did, it started at 6am in a London studio and went all day into the night) and the nostalgia for that time exceeds what the song was intended for.
 
It actually got rushed out even later than that. The 12" has Bob Geldolf saying that the record was recorded on the 25th of November of 1984.
 
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