Santa Claus and Rudolph, not to mention sleigh bells and that little drummer boy, have provoked an all-out radio war.
The 24-hour Christmas-music format, considered wacky stunt broadcasting a few years ago, has become a radio-industry juggernaut. Some 366 radio stations around the country are using the format during the holiday season this year; there were only 195 doing it last year and half that number the year before.
Most major cities now have at least two stations broadcasting holiday music 24/7 beginning in November: This year, Chicago’s WLIT-FM, a pioneer of the Christmas music format, is getting competition from holiday-music upstart WNND-FM.
In fact, when WLIT learned that WNND had launched its holiday-music onslaught Nov. 18, WLIT execs switched to the format three days earlier than they had planned — within hours of
WNND’s surprise move.
Why would WNND, not to mention dozens of other stations all over America, be so eager to get in on this game? That’s easy: Because WLIT tripled its listenership during the holiday season last year.
From Nov. 28 to Dec. 11 last year, WLIT’s Christmas-music programming garnered an astonishing 9.3 share of all radio listeners, according to the Arbitron rating service (Arbitron usually ends its fall ratings period in early or mid-December).
By comparison, the station had 3.6 percent of all listeners in the January-March 2003 ratings period and a 2.9 share over the summer.
Once they saw holiday rating spikes like that — and a 2002 Arbitron ratings study confirmed those holiday-music surges at stations around the country — radio executives started flocking to Christmas formats like revelers to a bowl of spiked eggnog.
“The radio industry is not as much known for innovation as it is for shameless copying of somebody else’s innovation,” says Scott Fybush, editor of 100000watts.com, a Web site that tracks radio formats. Still, despite the fact that the holiday-music trend had been growing fast for the past two years, Fybush says he was “stunned” at the number of stations that adopted a Christmas music format this year.
“In the middle of November, I was seeing 20 stations a day” switch to the holiday format, he says.
“It makes great sense from a financial standpoint, partly because advertisers are always looking for an environment that’s compatible with their product and message,” says Tom Taylor, editor of the trade publication Inside Radio. “Christmas music makes for a great environment, so advertisers tend to like it a lot.”
“Anecdotally, you’ll hear about retail stores playing the Christmas-music stations, you’ll hear them in offices and stores,” another factor that makes the holiday format highly attractive to advertisers, Fybush says.
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But back when WLIT first tried the all-holiday music format in 2001, advertisers were much more wary of jingling all the way from Thanksgiving to Christmas.
“Advertisers were a little nervous,” says Bob Kaake, program director for WLIT. “They thought this was some stunt. We had to explain that we were taking the [temporary Christmas music format] very seriously.”
Given the station’s stellar holiday ratings in 2001 and 2002, holiday advertising slots on the station sold out early this year, Kaake says. “We went out on a limb [in 2001] and it did extremely well for us,” he adds.
The success of WLIT and other Christmas carol pioneers has inspired many imitators, all of whom are in what Fybush calls “this giant arms race” to be the first station playing Christmas tunes.
“Last year, New York didn’t have any all-Christmas stations — a few stations just gently mixed in holiday music,” Fybush says. “This year, they were like, `We’ve got someone else breathing down our neck; we’ve got to go [to the format] the day after Thanksgiving.'”
But that traditional starting date for holiday music is becoming a relic of Christmas past. One station in Charlotte, N.C., went all-Christmas the day after Halloween. Many others made the switch well before Thanksgiving rolled around this year.
“When you hear the Christmas format in November, you probably think, `I’m way behind! I haven’t bought cards yet, I haven’t bought presents!’ That’s what I thought,” says Taylor, who now can pick up five all-holiday stations at his home, which is halfway between Philadelphia and New York.
But industry thinking holds that the radio station that locks in holiday listeners first will have them all season long, which is why the carols are starting up earlier every year.
Depends on competition
“In a perfect world, maybe we wouldn’t go so early” to the format, says Kaake of this WLIT’s switch this year. “Maybe if our competitor doesn’t go early next year, we won’t either.”
“If it keeps going this way, you’re going to have someone flipping [to the holiday format] on Labor Day,” sighs Fybush.
“We got people who called and said, `This is way too early'” when the holiday music began Nov. 18, says David J., the distinctively named program manager for WNND. “Then again, Hollywood had already released Christmas movies the week before, and that week I was walking down State Street and they were already putting up all the holiday decorations.”
J. said regardless of how the station does in the ratings — and he says WNND hopes to snare some of WLIT’s listeners — the Christmas stunt has at least helped raise his station’s profile.
“Our promotions department has been doing a lot of events around the city, and the response has been really positive,” he says.
Like WNND, many stations use the Christmas gimmick to get the public’s attention; that certainly happened this year when a holiday radio war broke out in New Orleans, of all places. The Crescent City’s WCKW-FM switched to Christmas music Nov. 7, and the only soft-rock in town, WLMG-FM, followed suit hours later.
Jumping on bandwagon
Given that New Orleans was then without a soft-rock station, WCKW switched to that format a few days later. WLMG did too. WCKW execs soon decided to go back to all-Christmas music again, and its competitor did as well — within 15 minutes.
“I think its so amusing that Santa Claus could provoke a battle like this,” says WCKW operations manager Tony Florentino. “We’re not out there doing outrageous stunts — we have a nice, tame morning show and we don’t normally get a lot of media attention.”
Though he’s glad that all the holiday genre-hopping has gotten his station noticed, Florentino realizes that the format has its limits.
“I think we’re nearing the point of overkill,” he says. Like WNND’s manager, he’s waiting to see how the station does in the ratings before deciding whether they’ll be doing the jingle-bell thing next year. But don’t expect this broadcast evergreen to go away completely.
“Radio stations are purely profit oriented,” says Rick Morris, a professor of media studies at Northwestern University. “They’ll do whatever sells and attracts audiences.”
But Morris points out that the holiday programming has its detractors.
“A good portion of listeners celebrate Hanukkah and Ramadan and Kwanzaa,” he notes. “Those people might not appreciate Christmas music.”
Then again, “The other day I found myself listening to [holiday music] for a couple of hours in my car,” Morris says. “It’s far too early for me to be caught up in it, but I got caught up in it.”