The latest issue of my Radio Programming Letter discusses whether mainstream radio stations that program Christmas music around the clock leading up to and immediately after December 25 are helping or hurting themselves.
This issue also includes a detailed radio talent aircheck critique.
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anne sounds like a liner jock….and we all know they can be easily replaced. a station in my neighborhood laid off all the staff outside of the morning show a couple years ago…all those people were basically time and temp people, read the liner cards and here’s 10 more in a row types.
the delivery also sounds forced and over enthusiastic, but that’s almost to be expected getting back into the industry after a decade. she sounds like a baseball “joe radio” announcer on the “5” and “i” it’s five not “Fiiiiive” and “iii” but that could just be me. it’s one of those nitpicking things that a PD may or may not notice. otherwise a strong female voice, which I do like. would be great for a lite AC.
I hope she develops the personna she is happy with.
your comments on 24/7 Christmas music are “music” to my ears, dan. wish i could have had your persuasive powers back in my own radio days, cuz i’m right there with the guy who wrote you the original note. i have good memories of some Christmas songs, and count myself in the Christian camp, but having that stuff on all day and all night in so many mixed format recordings non-stop….well, it’s just one reason my radio’s off right now. Cool Yule, y’all.
Dan,
I didn’t even listen to the aircheck. I went straight to the critique and the sad thing is it would apply to 80% of those on the air today.
KJ
I programmed music for a Christian radio station for over 10 years. We went all Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving.
You are astute Dan in noting that if ‘all Chritsmas’ CAN work, it can ONLY work on a ‘Christian’ radio station.
Since Christian radio is more ‘worldview’ than ‘genre’ – it was/is expected that we’d play Christmas music…BUT, unlike most Christian stations, we only programmed traditional carols/hymns/songs that spoke to the birth of Christ and mostly shied away from Santa songs (at the direction of the GM/station owner). Though personally I wish we played ALL Christmas/Seasonal songs – it was actually easier to program a narrower songlist.
First of all, over 75% of ‘Christian’ artists have released a Christmas album (if not at least a couple singles), so I was able to still play my core artists. Second, I worked very hard to still preserve the ‘sound’ of our format as much as possible – since most of said artists recorded traditional carols in a comtemporary way (though I wouldn’t play the overly comtemporary versions of classics, which only the really young like). These are just a couple ways I tried to avoid the concerns Rowell brought up above.
There are several ‘secular’ stations in this market that go all Christmas music, but It’s hard to listen to. They end up throwing everything on the air – from Nat King Cole to Heavy Metal Christmas, to Traditional carols to Novelty songs – to fill their programming…and often use songs by artists, and in genres, and in recording quality that they’d NEVER use during the other 11 1/2 months of the year.
It’s a little like the department stores who completely rearrange their floor plan and product placement for Christmas…it’s fine for those specifically Christmas shopping, but a nuisance for everyone else who only want the products they come to that store for all year round.
We’ve had 2 stations here flip the format on 11/1–what a disaster. One does it every year, gets the small ratings bump and then drops again to where they always are. The other is new at it this year and the above comment is right–a hodgepodge of songs and genres and formats……is it worth the negative complaints from the regulars just so people will incredulously talk about your station in a fashion as to mock them? I think not….we usually balance out our Christmas music and use the phrase I coined to counterbalance it: “we play a SENSIBLE mix of holiday favorites”…..cause the other way makes no sense to me. I’m waiting for the book where these stations bite a BIG one but with the economy in the doldrums, maybe people need the simpler songs and messages.
I am a former afternoon host for a top-rated large market mainstream AC that would tie their “non-stop” Christmas music to the dial position in the first year or two I was their (e.g. “101 hours,” “104 hours,” “96 hours”) after a seemingly sensible rollout over the preceding weeks: heavy up on the day after Thanksgiving, then 1x/hr over the next few weekdays, 2x/hr etc. The problem I had is that the station, a one time former beautiful music station (remember them?) and MUCH liter AC station, would trot out songs that seemed to be only from that era. As the station successfully grew to hip itself up and ween itself away from predictable Michael Bolton or Neil Diamond ballads, come Christmas-time, we were playing Barbara Mandrell(!), heavy doses of Johnny Mathis, and a fair amount that should probably have been left to the domain of the classic oldies outlet in town (The Chipmunks, Snoopy’s Christmas, etc), oh – and someone named Joanie Bartels. The more contemporary the station got, the more these songs stuck out like a sore thumb. In later years as the station moved up its “all Christmas” stunt programming (and since I’ve left it’s usually been before Thanksgiving), I’ve often thought how it was essentially handing the keys to the listener who still wanted their favorite currents and recurrents to the less successful hot AC competitor. It totally turned over the personality of the station to a single holiday theme at the expense of what we normally provided our listeners. And it seemed for every listener e-mail we got that was thrilled with the flip, there were at least one or two others that would tell us they’d be back after Christmas. Then, in intervening years when other PDs there instituted “backsell EVERY song of a just-concluded 5-6 song set” policy, you’d hear jocks announcing some of the most obvious titles in the world. “Really? That song was called ‘Deck…the…Halls?’ Interesting…” Now it’s one of the stations that have picked up on the pre-recorded robo-backsells on every song, which, for Christmas music, sounds a little silly. Like the Christian music programmer (Kyle) above, I have found that the non-commercial national Christian network I listen to most (4th in our market since the PPM) does the best and most balanced job keeping the currents and recurrents in the mix with the songs by artists that their audience expects. They don’t abandon their core listeners for stunt programming and they stay true to the general tone of the network, both in tone and in lyrical content. Frankly, I can’t imagine any station in today’s climate that isn’t better served rolling out continuous Christmas music on an HD sub channel or internet stream. Leave the currents in the mix until at least the last few days or requisite number of “frequency” hours.
hi there is a station in the states that started playing that christmas music in nov of this year that is just sick play it in dec where it belongs but not november thanks jimmy fever
We flipped a Classic Country format to ALL Christmas on Nov. 1. I think I’m gonna shoot myself. Had a bunch of regular listeners call to say they loved me, but would switch for now and be back on Jan. 1. We didn’t even switch to Country Christmas music- it’s Frank Sinatra and Josh Groban, etc. Our sales people were all excited they could sell it big time- so far that hasn’t happened.
I understand all the fine statements here, but don’t understand why so many clever programmers do change to an all-Christmas format. Probably because they get ratings records from it. I know some well programmed “All Christmas”-stations do a lot to get listeners to hang around after Christmas by producing some clever liners telling new listeners what to expect after Christmas.