Christmas music is sneaking in
November 12, 2020Several weeks ago we told you about WWIZ (103.9 West Middlesex) putting their all-Christmas format into play about a month earlier than normal. Now, as we suspected, Christmas music is making an early appearance on WWSW (94.5) and WSHH (99.7).
3-W-S had a “preview weekend” this past weekend and promises the official start on Friday, November 20 – which would have been Pittsburgh’s Light Up Night if not for COVID-19.
Wish is playing one Christmas tune per hour it seems. They are likely to flip to the all-Christmas format on November 20 as well.
In a brief conversation with Bill Kelly at WWIZ over Facebook a few weeks ago, he said he started early to give the COVID-crazed listeners a little bit of early cheer. No doubt that’s true.
But everyone in the business knows that Christmas music is a pretty decent ratings boost and good for advertising dollars at this time of year. Tough year + Tough getting ad dollars = early Christmas!
With COVID cases rising across the country, a little something to take one’s mind off of it can be welcome – I say haul out the holly!
I’m usually a critic of so much Christmas music on the airwaves, but I’ll go for that thought, it’s like ’emergency music’ this year.
Call me Scrooge. I really hate hearing Christmas music before Thanksgiving. I hate getting burned out on Christmas music weeks before Christmas. I especially dislike hearing the Christmas “oldies” from when I was a kid, and I’m 69 years old! There is a huge collection of more modern Christmas songs that seem to be ignored. Worst of all are non-Christmas “winter” songs that have absolutely nothing to do with Christmas that get dragged out at this time of the year. “Frosty the Snowman” is about winter, and is just as appropriate in February as December. “Baby It’s Cold Outside” is also a purely winter song, with nothing to do with Christmas. And the politically correct censors who want to ban it because of content should be ignored. Don’t take it off of the playlist because of the lyrics. Take it off because IT’S NOT ABOUT CHRISTMAS. Playing those winter songs for Christmas is like calling “Those Lazy, Crazy, Hazy Days of Summer” a patriotic Fourth of July song.
I did a search on YouTube for Christmas Songs, and found an incredibly large collection of really excellent Christmas songs that the Pittsburgh stations refuse to play. When Christmas is near, like December 20, I’ll start listening to my own collection of Christmas music, REAL Christmas music. I will not have any local radio station playing Christmas music on as background noise while working or traveling. For the record, I really love GOOD Christmas music at Christmas time.
Your mileage may vary.
I hear you George. I think it’s that getting in early is to try and lock a station as THE Christmas station in listeners’ minds, so the habit to tune in is formed, and it creates a little buzz around the station too. If it gets put on in stores, they likely won’t touch the dial again.
Commercial radio is foremost about selling and has been for a long time. That was balanced by being live and local, with local news and public service, features that have faded out, so we’re left with just the selling. It’s easy to load a computer with a set of warhorse Christmas song standards without much thought given to it. It’s been that way for decades, but with more choices we can find ourselves, it stands out how narrowcast radio sounds now.
I sample the radio to hear what’s going on, but I too have escaped to other places, and run my own Xmas playlist in the last week. I’d still hear radio offerings in malls and stores, but most will be hearing less of that this year..
Boomer
Boomer, I understand what you’re saying. Sometimes I think the suits running terrestrial radio just need to think outside the box a little. It seems to me that while many people want Christmas music at Christmas time, they might appreciate the newer, more contemporary sounding Christmas songs instead of nothing but Christmas oldies. If I learned that there was a local radio station playing only the best sounding NEW Christmas songs, I think I’d give it a try. I’d never stumble across a station playing such music by accident. But if I learned about it through some other medium, I think I’d tune it in and check it out. Of course, even if I loved the old, worn-out Christmas oldies, if the station playing them switched early, if I didn’t listen to that station before they switched, I wouldn’t know to change the station to them if they didn’t let me know about the change. Those of us who pay attention to blogs like PBRTV know about this switch. I don’t know how ordinary listeners find out about early switches.