What Christmas (Music) Means To Me

November 14, 2024

As you read this, at least one station in your market has made the flip to All Frosty, All the Time. One could argue that making the switch during the November survey is a bit too early. We have seen mixed results for stations that decide that ten weeks of holiday tuneage is just what the market ordered.

More likely, this is a sales ploy. Heck, Costco was stocking Christmas decorations in August. I’m reasonably certain they did this for solid, data-based reasons, as those Disney themed snow globes were flying off the shelves.

Radio has been embracing the holiday format for about three decades. The reactions were decidedly mixed when I flipped Washington DC’s WASH way back in 2001. Internally it was greeted with a healthy dose of skepticism. However, if my listener e-mail was to be believed, they favored the move by a factor of ten to one. Alas, this was during the diary age, so the prime weeks of holiday excitement were not rated. (Hence the addition of the Holiday survey in PPM).

We have learned a few things from this annual format change:

• PPM works. Listeners by the tens of thousands flock to the home of the holiday hits.
• Listeners not only desire this music, they crave it. Sure, in the early stages your P1s might go elsewhere, but they are likely replaced by rabid fans who will give you most – if not all – of their quarter-hours.
• Market cume generally decreases during this period. The holiday format does not attract new cumers to our medium, it just moves them around.

There is no question that the flip to all Christmas music is the most innovative thing radio has done for the last 30 or so years. Think about it – name one other radio feature that listeners actually anticipate.

Going further, name one other radio innovation that has generated this level of passion.

JACK FM? It was met with an initial wave of “oh wow” but has become just another library-based format.

The proliferation of “classic” Hip Hop or R&B Oldies stations? They also have had their moment but are not big cume magnets.

What other groundbreaking, market altering formats, styles, or ideas have we generated?

I would submit that the biggest “audio” changes have been in the digital realm. From the iPod to Napster to pure plays like Pandora and Spotify, the audio landscape has been irreversibly changed.

Meanwhile, radio continues to execute the 1990s playbook.

Why? There are still a lot of creative people in our industry (we are fortunate to work with many of them). Why aren’t they being encouraged to break molds, try new ideas, and hope at least one of them will break through the clutter?

I would submit the reason is that radio has become risk averse. Sure, it is easy for me to say this as my livelihood does not depend on hitting the quarterly budget or maintaining a certain level of AQH share. If I were still programming, I doubt I’d be willing to roll the dice hoping to hit my numbers.

This kind of innovation starts at the top. I was fortunate to work for AM/FM back in the day. This was a company that encouraged taking risks. They knew not everything would work but realized you don’t grow by remaining stagnant.

Where are the visionaries? There is no way that every signal in an eight-station cluster is hitting it out of the park. Rather than parking a hard-drive based jukebox on signal number seven, take a chance. Experiment. Do something different. Be a disruptor. See what sticks.

What could happen? That two-share stick becomes a one share (and you could just re-engage the hard drive)? Or you come up with something that ignites listener passion and gets people talking.

All you are risking is the status quo.

Happy Holidays.

-Steve Allan, Programming Research Consultant

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