For as long as i’ve been paying attention, every city i’ve lived in has had at least one radio station that switches to an all-Christmas music format sometime in November and stays there until New Year’s. Here in the Seattle market it’s usually the same station every year, one of the soft rock stations, and last year we had two stations playing Christmas music starting even before Halloween.
Not this year, though - neither of the stations that did Christmas music last year are doing it this year, and i’ve flipped through the dials a couple times the last few days and haven’t found so much as a do you hear what I hear. I even asked Chacha and it couldn’t find one for me.
Dopers - is there Christmas music on your radio this year? Is there a national downturn in the all-Christmas station fad, or are us Washingtonians just especially grinchy? Is this part of that war on Christmas i’ve heard so much about?
The local soft rock station switches over to all-Christmas on November 18. A few years ago they used to wait until the day after Thanksgiving, so this is a slightly faster schedule, but not as bad as it could be.
Not yet. Two years ago (maybe three, my memory is for crap) one of the local stations started on November 1st. But it was well-received and since then most now wait until at least Thanksgiving.
In Chicago, 93.9 The Lite is playing Christmas music. They just finished playing “Rudolph” by Gene Autrey. I checked their website; I do not listen to Christmas music until the day after Thanksgiving.
Detroit has* three* stations right now playing all-Christmas music. I stumbled across them while driving last night and started yelling at the radio “Are you fucking kidding me? Fuck you. Fuck you all. This is why people subscribe to Sirius. You’re driving yourselves out of fucking business.”
To the best of my knowledge, there was only one station that did it last year, though I could easily be wrong about that.
As far as I know the only station that does this is 101.9 Lite FM WLIF Baltimore (they have a catchy jingle that sticks), but I don’t think any other Maryland or Delaware stations do. However, most of the time I either listen to Sirius XM or my iPod.
In St. Louis we have two (count 'em!) stations that switched to full-time Christmas on Nov. 6 – the lite rock station and one of the oldies stations.
I know some employees at one of the stations. They despise the Christmas music (or, at least the idea of playing it full time in early November) but the station managers insist people enjoy hearing it, so that’s how it’s gonna be.
As for me, I told them I’ll hear them again on Dece. 26. The only proper time for any Christmas music on the radio is all day Dec. 24 and until dinner on the 25th.
That station pushed the Christmas music window earlier every year for a while; I think they start at the beginning of November now. I suspect they’d move it even earlier if they thought it’d get ratings.
Two that I know of in Boston - 103.3 WODS and 105.7 WROR. The funniest thing is they both have Wacky Morning Show! crews, so the segue from the Wackiness! into Karen Carpenter singing “I’ll be Home for Christmas” is always kind of jarring.
95.5 FM, the mellow pop/rock station in Austin, usually starts playing Christmas songs 24/7 from Thanksgiviing though Christmas day itself.
That wouldn’t be so bad, except that there’s so LITTLE variety in what they play. WAAAAY too much of Elton John’s “Steping into Christmas” (but never “Ho Ho Ho/Who’d Be a Turkey at Christmas”), way too much of Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime,” way too much “All I Want for Christmas is You,” and waaaay too much “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.”
So much Christmas music out there, and they seem to re-play the same crap over and over.
A year or two ago, there was an article in the Chicago Tribune about that very topic. The program director at Lite FM (the station here which goes to all-Christmas music in early November) said that they’ve done extensive research on it, but that there are only about 40 or 50 songs which their listeners really seem to like to hear. If they play too much that’s outside of that set, they get complaints…and, so, those 40 or 50 songs get absolutely played to death.
One of the things I like about Sirius/XM satellite radio is the holiday music stations they have during the season. I don’t know when those start, though, and I won’t be listening to them until Thanksgiving.
I got hired to teach English in Japan between ThanksGiving and Christmas. By the time I left, I was really looking forward to living in a nation that didn’t emphasize Christmas so much (and so commercially).
It was my pleasure to learn that the Japanese don’t have a Christmas Season :D-- and my tremendous horror to learn that, starting November 1 and running through the end of February, they instead celebrate “Winta Gifto-ken” [Winter Gift Season) and play all the world’s favorite 40 holiday songs by all the worlds ten-thousand different cover artists over and Over and OVer and OVEr and OVER non-stop :smack: and, since my school was in the downtown/shopping area of my little town, they piped the stuff out over indoor and outdoor speakers as a public service.:eek::mad:
—G!?
Before rejoicing about that light at the end of the tunnel,
realize that you might just be seeing the front end of the train…
Not only that, but they seem to get earlier every year. WROR waited until Thanksgiving in the very recent past, but they’ve been playing all Christmas Music All the Time for a weeek or two already.
