T-Minus 24 Hours And Counting

[Joseph_Gallant]

As I write this post, it's 12:30 P.M. EDT on October 31st (2022). The title of this thread refers to the fact that some radio stations that go all-Christmas do so on November 1st with many others following on subsequent days.

According to Radio Insight.com (Christmas Music Season Starts In Shreveport - RadioInsight ) Shreveport's KRMD-1340/K264AS flipped to an all-Christmas format this past Friday night (October 28th), apparently the first radio station in the United States to do so this year.

As I have speculated elsewhere on these messageboards, I think that a lot of stations will "take the plunge" tomorrow (November 1st), which for most stations that go all-Christmas would be a few days earlier than in recent years. I also think that most medium, large, and major markets may see multiple all-Christmas stations this year, even in markets where traditionally, only one station goes all-Christmas.

While I think the annual wave of Christmas flips will come as soon as tomorrow, those flips will definitely come in the first week and a half of November.

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

According to a story on Inside Radio (https://www.insideradio.com/free/ch...cle_a397fd22-593e-11ed-af04-3b24368c1190.html ) reports that Chicago's WLIT-93.9 will go all-Christmas tomorrow (November 1st) at 4 P.M. CDT.

If you have problems clicking on that link, try this Chicago Sun-Times story:

Ready or not, Christmas music starts Tuesday on Lite FM .

Personally, I don't think that WLIT will be the only major-market station or I-Heart owned station that will switch to 24/7 Christmas music tomorrow.

 

[Mikey Radio]

Someone in another thread mentioned "Music Choice" which provides several music channels to customers of Cox, Comcast, Spectrum, Direct TV and others. One of their channels is called "Sounds of the Seasons" and I sometimes switch it on to listen in the background when working as they play patriotic tunes for several days before the 4th of July, Irish music before St. Paddy's Day, etc. Throughout most of October they play Halloween music, parodies and spooky/ghost-themed music, and at midnight on Oct. 31 / Nov. 1 they switch to Christmas.

I was at a Halloween party last year and they had that channel on in the background to set the mood. Everyone in the place started screaming and they couldn't switch it off fast enough when midnight rolled around and "The Witch Doctor" abruptly stopped mid-song and Johnny Mathis started belting out one of his usual Christmas ballad standards. Waaaayyyy too early for that! Lol.

 

[CTListener]

In another thread on this well-worn topic, someone wondered if stations would delay their Christmas flip until after Election Day to distance the holiday cheer from the venomous political advertising that is going to dominate Nov. 1-8. Will the stations who flip tomorrow absorb any listener blowback or post low initial ratings, or is one week's disgust with politics inconsequential in the bigger picture?

 

[PTBoardOp94]

In another thread on this well-worn topic, someone wondered if stations would delay their Christmas flip until after Election Day to distance the holiday cheer from the venomous political advertising that is going to dominate Nov. 1-8. Will the stations who flip tomorrow absorb any listener blowback or post low initial ratings, or is one week's disgust with politics inconsequential in the bigger picture?

There are many places in the US with no significant elections. Illinois is one of them. Their governor and senate races are sewn up, nor are any of the congressional seats representing Chicago expected to be competitive.

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

Also, political advertisers seldom buy spots on music-formatted stations, preferring to place spots on all-news news/talk, or all-talk stations.

This means that in many cases, radio stations that go all-Christmas before Election Day can do so without nasty political attack ads bumping up against Christmas music

But this year, so much money is being spent by candidates, parties, and especially outside groups that in some cases, political ads might appear on music-formatted stations.

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

Throughout most of October (Music Choice's "Sounds Of The Seasons" channel) play(s) Halloween music, parodies and spooky/ghost-themed music, and at midnight on Oct. 31 / Nov. 1 they switch to Christmas.

I was at a Halloween party last year and they had that channel on in the background to set the mood. Everyone in the place started screaming and they couldn't switch it off fast enough when midnight rolled around and "The Witch Doctor" abruptly stopped mid-song and Johnny Mathis started belting out one of his usual Christmas ballad standards.

Perhaps Music Choice should have waited until 3 or even 4 A.M. EDT on November 1st to switch their seasonal music channel to all-Christmas, since (unless they have multiple feeds for different time zones) those in California would suddenly get Christmas music on that channel at 9 P.M. PDT on Halloween night!

 

[gr8oldies]

Also, political advertisers seldom buy spots on music-formatted stations, preferring to place spots on all-news news/talk, or all-talk stations.

This means that in many cases, radio stations that go all-Christmas before Election Day can do so without nasty political attack ads bumping up against Christmas music

But this year, so much money is being spent by candidates, parties, and especially outside groups that in some cases, political ads might appear on music-formatted stations.

I have to take exception to the idea that all political advertising goes to News-talk stations. Particularly the Democratic Party wants their supporters to vote, and they aren't listening to Clay and Buck.. Sometimes there are group buys. In Knoxville, TN we sometimes get ads from Kentucky because of the power of WIVK, but the ads appear on News Talk 98.7, even though the signal doesn't reach Kentucky. Minority-targeted stations also get ads, and even religious stations

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Also, political advertisers seldom buy spots on music-formatted stations, preferring to place spots on all-news news/talk, or all-talk stations.

No. Political advertising goes where the listeners are. Republican candidates are likely to tilt their advertising towards news talk, because it is a friendly environment.

Let's take WSB/WSBB-FM (news/talk) and WSB-FM (AC), as an illustrative example, because they serve the same market and have the same ownership (so no effects from the sales staff at Company A being less adept at political than Company B)

In 2020, WSB-FM had $10,500 a week in ads placed by Donald Trump for President. And Joe Biden for President spent $12,900 per week.
WSB AM/WSBB-FM had $32,250 a week placed by the Trump camp, and $6,250 placed by the Biden camp.

Keep in mind that WSB-AM was the higher rated station, so the cost per ad was quite a bit higher.

That's not including the US Senate and US House races, which were also contested in Georgia that year. That also doesn't include "issue ads" placed by political action committees or ads placed by the parties themselves.

Summary: There were political ads aplenty on WSB-FM in 2020. It probably would not have been uncommon to have complete commercial breaks that were nothing but political matter.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Also, political advertisers seldom buy spots on music-formatted stations, preferring to place spots on all-news news/talk, or all-talk stations.

I guess it depends on the age of the listeners. WERT Van Wert, Ohio (adult standards) has been running anti-Tim Ryan ads constantly.

And one candidate had a scary ad for Halloween where a pleasant female voice told us who was responsible for the ad, followed by "Boo!"

 

[gr8oldies]

I guess it depends on the age of the listeners. WERT Van Wert, Ohio (adult standards) has been running anti-Tim Ryan ads constantly.

And one candidate had a scary ad for Halloween where a pleasant female voice told us who was responsible for the ad, followed by "Boo!"

Curious if those were placed by the Vance campaign, the Republican Party or a PAC?

 

[gr8oldies]

Gary Burbank would "blow up" the political ads on the air the day after the election on WLW.

 

[DavidEduardo]

No. Political advertising goes where the listeners are. Republican candidates are likely to tilt their advertising towards news talk, because it is a friendly environment.

Better campaigns run ads where research shows there are more undecided voters. That means doing a small research project linking "undecided" with radio stations, local TV newscasts and even syndicated shows and cable networks that reach them.

 

[gr8oldies]

Better campaigns run ads where research shows there are more undecided voters. That means doing a small research project linking "undecided" with radio stations, local TV newscasts and even syndicated shows and cable networks that reach them.

There's still the aspect of driving turnout. "If my opponent wins, the radical leftist socialist Communist Marxists will make your good Christian kindergartner gay".

 

[DavidEduardo]

There's still the aspect of driving turnout. "If my opponent wins, the radical leftist socialist Communist Marxists will make your good Christian kindergartner gay".

Or, "If my opponent wins, they will nationalize all sports bars and only sell house brand beer and show chess and cricket matches."

(Hit Billy Bob in the gut, and he´ll vote for your two or three times, at least!)

 

[CurtisNEPA]

Today is November 1, and, you guessed it? The start of the holiday season! Mariah Carey has transform from a witch to Santa welcoming the world to the most exciting time of the year, which is Christmas season. And those AC stations have heeded her call to switch to all holiday tunes from this day forward until sometime after the last presents are opened.

I think starting all-Xmas music too early is not a good idea, as this would alienate the at-work audience who are not yet ready to embrace the holidays. When I was very young, none of the radio stations went X-Mas at all throughout the month of November, even a few days after Thanksgiving. Furthermore, growing up in the 90's, only few Xmas songs were played along with regular music in early December, and then going full blown Xmas few days leading up to the holiday. When a station goes into X-Mas mode during the holiday season, sometimes the normal format temporarily gets migrated to one of the HD channels, that is if the main station is broadcasting in HD, or gets exclusive streaming. I prefer X-Mas music to be only played from Thanksgiving until Christmas night, not November 1, not on Halloween, not even earlier. This Christmas creep in the radio industry is driving everyone nuts!

We're thankful there's Sirius XM where they have exclusive holiday-themed channels, not playing all-Xmas tunes on mainstream music channels like The Blend and such! X-Mas music that are being played even starting on Halloween is a part of greed from corporate radio companies whose sole purpose is to increase ratings and generate income.

 

[CTListener]

We're thankful there's Sirius XM where they have exclusive holiday-themed channels, not playing all-Xmas tunes on mainstream music channels like The Blend and such! X-Mas music that are being played even starting on Halloween is a part of greed from corporate radio companies whose sole purpose is to increase ratings and generate income.

The increased ratings mean that more people are listening to those stations when they're playing Christmas music than when they aren't. Nobody is forcing those people to listen, so one must assume that they're enjoying what they hear. So what's to criticize big, bad corporate radio for, especially when it's flipping stations with plain vanilla formats like adult contemporary? Most AC listeners have multiple alternate channels to listen to for two months while Santa's elves are busy in the Star/Lite/Magic workshop.

 

[CurtisNEPA]

The increased ratings mean that more people are listening to those stations when they're playing Christmas music than when they aren't. Nobody is forcing those people to listen, so one must assume that they're enjoying what they hear. So what's to criticize big, bad corporate radio for, especially when it's flipping stations with plain vanilla formats like adult contemporary? Most AC listeners have multiple alternate channels to listen to for two months while Santa's elves are busy in the Star/Lite/Magic workshop.

I'm pretty sure that within the next few years, X-Mas music could even start as early as Columbus Day. I knew a very few stations sometimes do this. But it could expand to the Lite-FMs, the Mixes, and the Sunnys across the country.

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

Someone in another thread mentioned "Music Choice" which provides several music channels to customers of Cox, Comcast, Spectrum, Direct TV and others. One of their channels is called "Sounds of the Seasons" and I sometimes switch it on to listen in the background when working as they play patriotic tunes for several days before the 4th of July, Irish music before St. Paddy's Day, etc. Throughout most of October they play Halloween music, parodies and spooky/ghost-themed music, and at midnight on Oct. 31 / Nov. 1 they switch to Christmas.

I was at a Halloween party last year and they had that channel on in the background to set the mood. Everyone in the place started screaming and they couldn't switch it off fast enough when midnight rolled around and "The Witch Doctor" abruptly stopped mid-song and Johnny Mathis started belting out one of his usual Christmas ballad standards. Waaaayyyy too early for that! Lol.

Just like clockwork, that's what they did today. I turned that on just to see what was happening - and sure enough, it was wall-to-wall Christmas music. I wouldn't mind so much if they just played the usual Christmas standards. But because they have so much time to fill, they play every possible song. Back to back, they played 3 versions of "Run, Run, Rudolph", which was great when Chuck Berry sang it, but not so great when Kelly Clarkson sang it.

Probably the most overplayed song on Music Choice is, "All I Want For Christmas Is You", by Mariah Carey. I thought that song was so cute the first 500 times that I heard it - but after that, nah. And whenever "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime" by McCartney comes on, I have to switch it off. That song can get really grating on the nerves. JMO.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Just like clockwork, that's what they did today. I turned that on just to see what was happening - and sure enough, it was wall-to-wall Christmas music. I wouldn't mind so much if they just played the usual Christmas standards. But because they have so much time to fill, they play every possible song. Back to back, they played 3 versions of "Run, Run, Rudolph", which was great when Chuck Berry sang it, but not so great when Kelly Clarkson sang it.

Probably the most overplayed song on Music Choice is, "All I Want For Christmas Is You", by Mariah Carey. I thought that song was so cute the first 500 times that I heard it - but after that, nah. And whenever "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime" by McCartney comes on, I have to switch it off. That song can get really grating on the nerves. JMO.

I don't want to hear the likes of "Run, Run, Rudolph" by anyone. It's a style of music I can enjoy at other times of year but it's not my idea of a Christmas song. I also don't want to hear Kelly Clarkson sing anything, ever. Or Mariah Carey". And the "Wonderful Christmastime" is terrible.