Christmas 103

[Scott Fybush]

>I suspect that nationwide in the US, after
>Thanksgiving, when Christmas goes into full swing in this country, the
>number of stations running all-Christmas-music all-the-time (except for
>other kinds of programming, such as sporting events, which some stations are
>contractually obligated to carry) may well exceed 1000. That would amount to
>only a little more than 7% of all US radio stations!

Oh dear. Joe Gallant has apparently gotten a hold of Dan's e-mail account 
and is posting from there :-)

The real number in the last few years has been closer to 300 than 1000, and 
that's including stations that flip as late as 12/20 or so. (That's from 
our tracking at 100000watts.com, which I have reason to believe is 
extremely accurate.)

In general, we've found that the stations that go all-Christmas are 
generally in large or medium markets, and it's rare to find more than one 
in a market. Even assuming we miss a few (and no doubt we do), I'd still 
doubt that the number is much above 400, and even that includes affiliates 
of one or another of the satellite services that go all-Christmas for a 
couple of weeks.

It's still very much a mixed bag - for every station that does extremely 
well with it, there's another that finds that the listeners don't come 
back, or that they've inadvertently created a temporary format hole for an 
aggressive competitor to enter.

s