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Fewer all-Christmas flips this year?

I haven't heard about too many large or medium markets where a station that went All-Christmas last year failed to do it this year. Yet I can think of three Top 20 markets where there are new All-Christmas stations... KKGO Los Angeles (almost no Country stations do the format but KKGO is doing it this year), KDGE Dallas (just flipped from Alternative to AC) and WBRN Tampa (flipping from Rock to Who Knows?).

The list gets skewed by some stations that only do the All-Christmas format one season because they are in the process of flipping and want to premiere the new format after the holidays, such as WBRN which is not likely to go AC, and therefore won't be doing the Christmas format next year. Or it is skewed by the countless non-commercial Christian stations, that may not be real stations, since organizations like K-Love can buy up local outlets and put their national format on them 24/7. K-Love bought several stations in large markets over the last year. So when they switch to All-Christmas, does that count? I assume on the Station Intel list, it counts.
 
BTW, I noticed some mistakes on the Station Intel list. It doesn't have WOMC Detroit, a CBS Classic Hits station that switches every year, including this one. But it does have WLYF Miami, which never switches. It has an HD2 channel that switches. The Station Intel list has them both. It lists WKJY Nassau-Suffolk which only plays Christmas music nights and weekends.
 
Springfield, MA, lost a Christmas flipper this year. WHYN-FM (Hot AC) and WMAS (AC) used to go Christmas; this year only WMAS made the switch.
 
golden eagles97 said:
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Doesn't Kiss in Hartford reach Springfield?
Click to expand...

Yes, but it's not a Springfield station and Springfield advertisers don't budget for it. They buy ads on the two in-market ACs. Also, the WKSS signal becomes marginal very quickly as you go north, meaning no listeners in Holyoke, Northampton, Amherst and Deerfield. Does the market really need a CHR? The two ACs combined for a 14.7 in the latest 12+ beauty pageant. Unfortunately, the numbers for WKSS in Springfield are not made public, but since the signal isn't city grade and the station doesn't tailor any aspect of its presentation to Springfield, I'd imagine the audience there is inconsequential. Besides, if iHeart dumps Hot AC on 'HYN for full-blown CHR, wouldn't that just hand over a bunch of WHYN's current 35-54 listeners to Cumulus's WMAS with no listener defections coming the other way?

Springfield's demographics might not favor CHR. It's an older market, generally, but also has a strong, if transient, college student presence, so you have two ACs, a classic rocker, an AAA, an active rocker, a country station, even a smooth jazz station. Its primary public radio station plays classical music most of the day. No urban of its own, but WZMX Hartford covers the market with a much better signal than WKSS. The Hispanic population -- considerable, but still largely an economic underclass -- is served by a motley assortment of AMs and LPFMs, and probably doesn't represent an inviting target for an English-language CHR in the first place. Where is it written that every market must have a CHR?
 
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