Christmas music radio (also known as all-Christmas or festive) is a music radio format devoted to the playing of Christmas music.
Christmas music is a seasonal radio format. Radio stations that adopt the format traditionally carry some other format throughout the majority of the year (most commonly adult contemporary music or contemporary Christian music), then drop that format entirely and switch exclusively to Christmas music for the holiday season. At minimum, the all-Christmas format runs through Advent and Christmas Day, with most stations playing the format for a large portion of November and often continuing more limited Christmas music for the week after Christmas. [1] [2]
The Christmas music radio format has its own core artists and songs, independent of whatever format the station normally runs; most stations mix this core with records more in line with their standard format. In the United States, this core consists of records substantially older than any commonly used radio format, with a large body of records dating to the 1940s through the early 1960s—an era that had otherwise largely been abandoned by mainstream radio formats by the early 2020s [3] —remaining among the format's most popular. [4] [5] Canada and the United Kingdom generally draw upon records from the classic hits eras of the 1970s and 1980s.
The roots of the holiday format date to the 1970s, [6] but Phoenix, Arizona, was critical to the format's popularization. In 1989, KMEO AM began airing Christmas music from the day after Thanksgiving to Christmas Day, the first local station to do so. [7] Later, another local station, KOY (550 AM), joined the format, along with FM station KTWC. [8] [9] KOY in particular was successful at this. The general manager of KESZ "KEZ", an adult contemporary station in Phoenix, noted that KOY lured away many of KESZ's regular listeners during the holiday season and, in 1996, began programming Christmas music itself. [10]
After KESZ was acquired by Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia) and the September 11 attacks of 2001, and in light of the ratings and revenue increases that Christmas stations saw during and after the holidays, the format went national. In 2001, Clear Channel went all-Christmas at 75 stations, including some new markets like KOST in Los Angeles. [11] Sean Ross of RadioInsight later credited the introduction at KOST as a "format tipping point". [12]
Although there is a chance that a station's normal audience may be alienated by a switch to all-Christmas music (adult contemporary, country music, and oldies audiences are generally the most accepting), these risks are outweighed by the increase in ratings that such a shift can attract. [13] There is also a chance that after they return to regular programming, a station may be able to retain some of this expanded audience as new, regular listeners. [13]
"There's no other programming tactic in radio history that consistently delivers ratings increases better than Christmas music. Playing Christmas music is all about having a larger audience after Christmas than you did before. People who find the station often stick around after the holidays and discover a new favorite station." [13]
Arbitron (now Nielsen Audio) reported in 2011 that it was not uncommon for a station's average audience to double after switching to Christmas music, citing several large-market stations in 2010 such as Boston's WODS, Los Angeles's KOST, New York's WLTW, and San Diego's KYXY. [13] In 2017, Chicago's WLIT-FM roughly quadrupled its audience share between November (2.8) and December (12.4) after making the switch. [14] [15] The practice may not always transition well into financial success, since advertisers do not universally recognize Nielsen's holiday ratings book. [16] In some markets, there may be one dominant broadcaster of Christmas music, but this is not always the case; stations in competitive markets may observe an advantage to being first in their market to adopt the format, while other stations may change their formats to all-Christmas at the same time as their competitors to negate that advantage. [14]
It is not uncommon for some stations to adopt the format prior to Thanksgiving, or even as early as late-October. The practice has been considered an example of Christmas creep. [17] [2] [1]
A handful of American radio stations [18] have, since 2006, earned a reputation for regularly switching to Christmas music on November 1, the day after Halloween; as of 2011, this has not become the norm for most of North America (most stations have typically changed on or around Veterans, Remembrance and Armistice Day on November 11; for example, iHeartMedia used November 10 as the standard launch date for most of its approximately 90 Christmas format flips in 2023). [19] Earlier flips to Christmas music were noted in 2020 (the first station that year, WWIZ in the Mahoning Valley, flipped in late September), as broadcasters sought to alleviate some of the stress brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. [20] [21]
A sudden reversal of this trend occurred as the pandemic waned in 2022, as no station would adopt the all-Christmas format until October 28—and that station, the lone station to flip before November 1, had largely gone unnoticed until October 30; the trade Web site Radio Insight, which tracks the first-in-the-nation Christmas flips, erroneously stated that "it appears we will make it to Halloween without a radio station already having started playing Christmas music." [22] In general, this later start was also observed in 2023; Radio Insight and Inside Radio both noted that the first station each noticed had changed to Christmas music was WMXL in Lexington, Kentucky, which did so at midnight October 31. (An additional station, WMGA in Kenova, West Virginia, had flipped on October 19, but this change was a stunt tied to the station's upcoming format change after Christmas.) [23] [24] Most outlets stopped tracking who was first in 2024, and Radio Insight counted a pre-acknowledged stunt by WLRS that began October 1 as the first; [25] that year, among non-stunting stations, WLKK-HD2 changed on October 10, [26] while the October 25 change of K252FO (a relay of KKGO-FM-HD2) was the first of an analog signal, [27] and no non-stunting, full-power AM or FM signal was known to make the switch until October 31, when WAKW in Cincinnati, Ohio made the switch. [28] Radio Insight noted that while the creeping of early Christmas flips had largely stopped at October 31, more stations had flipped that day or in the first week of November than in years past. [29]
The choice of November 1 has been regularly promoted by Mariah Carey, who regularly releases videos promoting her song "All I Want for Christmas Is You" on the morning of November 1 each year, transitioning from Halloween themes to Christmas settings as Carey declares "It's time!" [30] Carey's song holds a narrow plurality among songs that American Christmas music radio stations use to signal the launch of the all-Christmas format, with five of the 20 stations that had changed before Veterans Day choosing that song and four choosing "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" by Andy Williams (counting all versions of songs, the two are tied, as an additional station chose Johnny Mathis's version of "Most Wonderful..."). [31]
The typical Christmas music format in the United States carries a mix of approximately 150 recordings, with a heavy focus on vocal adult standards and MOR selections (both formats otherwise being rare on major commercial radio since the early 21st century) from before 1970. [4] Instrumental selections from that era, which generally fall under the beautiful music category, have historically been rarely heard and unpopular. [32] Rob Lucas, who for 22 years served as music director and morning host for Star 102.5 in Buffalo, New York (a station now relegated to an automated digital feed), outlined his scheduling formula for that station: [4]
WLIT-FM, which likewise runs a 250-song core playlist and runs the format for longer than usual (traditionally November 2 to December 25), emphasizes the mid-20th-century standards, especially during the early days and weeks of the all-Christmas format, because its listeners expect more familiarity in the format in that time period when such songs have been off the air for several months. [5]
As many Christmas songs contain themes strongly associated with Christmas Day (such as references to figures such as Santa Claus), and popular observance of the Christmas season often ends after December 25 (in contrast to the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas, which by definition runs until Epiphany on January 6), most stations typically end their all-Christmas programming at some point on December 25 or 26. If a station opts to continue playing Christmas songs beyond the date itself, Lucas advises that these songs be removed from the playlist, noting a substantial number of seasonal winter records still remain playable through the weekend following Christmas, or even through New Year's Day. [4]
Christmas music stations in Canada tend to follow a similar pattern to those in the United States but with the addition of Canadian content; because of the relative lack of older Christmas music written or recorded in Canada and/or by Canadians, this leads to a more contemporary sound compared to most American stations. [34]
The period from late afternoon Christmas Eve to noon Christmas Day, Lucas reserved for heavy rotation of religious and spiritual records, as a nod to the solemnity of the holiday. [4] Songs with Christian themes in general tend to be less played than secular Christmas songs (only one predominantly Christian Christmas song, Ray Conniff's "Ring Christmas Bells," ranked among the top 70 records played in December 2024, with the caveat that many of the more familiar Christian songs have several cover versions depressing each version's individual chart ranking); the conventional wisdom approach to religious music (outside of Christian adult contemporary, which due to the nature of its format has always carried a heavier mix of Christian Christmas songs) has program directors play very little (if any) Christian Christmas music in November before increasing it throughout Advent, with a 2024 survey noting most stations were playing between two and five songs with Christian themes per hour in the second week of December. [35] The increase in Christian Christmas song airplay in later December also, as of 2024, has helped bring certain beautiful music orchestras such as Conniff's and Percy Faith's into a slight renaissance. [35]
In Ireland, a temporary radio station named Christmas FM broadcasts on a temporary license in Dublin and Cork from November 28 to December 26, solely playing Christmas music.
In the UK, the Festive Fifty list of songs as voted for by listeners is broadcast starting on Christmas Day, originally by DJ John Peel, and nowadays by Internet radio station Dandelion Radio.
Since the early 2010s, a number of Christmas music stations have broadcast on national and local digital platforms in the United Kingdom, with some also being carried on the FM band. These have included:
Outside of traditional terrestrial radio, satellite radio provider SiriusXM typically devotes multiple channels to different genres of Christmas music during the holiday season. [47] Numerous Internet radio services also offer Christmas music channels, some of them available year-round. Citadel Media produced The Christmas Channel, a syndicated 24-hour radio network, during the holiday season in past years (though in 2010, Citadel instead included Christmas music on its regular Classic Hits network). Music Choice offers nonstop holiday music to its digital cable, cable modem, and mobile phone subscribers between November 1 and New Year's Day on its "Sounds of the Seasons" (traditional), "R&B" (soul), "Tropicales" (Latin), and "Soft Rock" (contemporary) channels, as well as a year-round "All Christmas" channel. DMX provides holiday music as part of its SonicTap music service for digital cable and DirecTV subscribers, as does Dish Network via its in-house Dish CD music channels. Services such as Muzak also distribute Christmas music to retail stores for use as in-store background music during the holidays.
iHeartRadio also has two-year-round stations that are dedicated to Christmas music. One station, iHeart Christmas, focuses on more contemporary holiday music, while the other, iHeart Christmas Classics, offers seasonal music from past decades. Audacy offers an "It's Always Christmas" feed year-round.
Christmas music is a popular stunt format for radio stations, either as a "Christmas in July" promotion, or as a buffer period for transitioning from one format to another.
The end of a calendar year is a common time period for format switches, often following an all-Christmas format (either immediately, or with a second stunt occurring directly afterward). [48] However, the transition itself can still occur before the end of the holiday season, such as the sudden transition of country station KMPS in Seattle to soft adult contemporary KSWD, after briefly playing an all-Christmas format following the merger of CBS Radio and Entercom (its country format had been made redundant by its new sister station KKWF). [49] [50]
Playing Christmas music outside of the holiday season, or otherwise implying that the format is permanent, is a more obvious stunt. In April 2008, the new radio station CFWD-FM in Saskatoon soft launched with an all-Christmas format in preparation for the station's official launch as a top 40 station. [51] [52]
In an extreme case, adult hits station WJSR in Lakeside/Richmond, Virginia maintained a Christmas music format from October 13, 2020, all the way through March 4, 2021, after which it flipped to classic hits; the station had stunted from the beginning of October as "Short Attention Span Radio" (which played shortened snippets of songs) before switching to Christmas music. [53] [54] Ironically, WJSR's sister station in the same market—WURV—had broadcast a 12-hour block of "inappropriately early" Christmas music on October 7, 2015, as a parody of Christmas creep and stations trying to be the first in their market to play Christmas music. [55] [56]
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