A station that flips its format can see its ratings triple in an especially good December (and gain from the commensurate advertising that comes along with them).īut when is the best time to push the holiday tunes?ĭarren Davis, iHeartMedia’s president of networks 2 and a former programmer in several major cities, laid down what’s going through the heads of people behind the playlist at your local radio station. Streaming services need to keep subscribers happy, and doing so requires sophisticated algorithms to keep Christmas out for 11 months and cranked up for one. Radio programmers, as well as music-streaming services such as Spotify, do a healthy amount of planning, data work and market research to create seasonal soundtracks that people want to hear - but not hear too soon.

1 The variety station saw a substantial jump in its ratings, and the trend eventually caught on nationwide. The first to throw out its regular playlist entirely was 99.9 KEZ (KESZ-FM) in Phoenix, in 1991 or 1992. 24 and 25, but the vast majority of soft-rock stations began switching to all-holiday soundtracks in the 1990s. Of course, stations in the past played some Christmas music on Dec. Radio’s wall-to-wall holiday format is a recent development. In fact, there’s an entire library of songs that are in constant demand now, but people cringe if they hear them months before. Magic 96.5 (WMJJ-FM) was one of the first stations in 2014 to give listeners exactly what they want at year’s end: more the Madonna than Madonna. The soft-rock radio station began playing all holiday music all the time. 24 at 6:24 p.m., Magic 96.5 in Birmingham, Alabama, flipped its “St.

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