The Christmas Flip

 I've written a bit about Christmas seasonal programming in the past. but today I intend to reveal statistics about this evil scourge of radio.  the most recent count indicates that over 400 radio station sin the U.S. are running Christmas programming today.  That's a little under three percent. It doesn't sound like a lot, but there are under 300 Arbitron radio metros, meaning that many cities have two or more 24/7 Christmas formatted radio stations. that's a bit repulsive.  The debate has never been to flip or not to flip. The question is always when.We call the phenomena "Christmas creep."

Not all formats flip per se. Many formats ad a little mistletoe to the playlist as the holiday approaches, but there is a certain stable subset that goes all the way. This comes as a series of waves, each seemingly in response to the last. Adult Contemporary of all flavors stations make up the bulk of the ho-ho-ho.  A few Classic Hits, Adult Standards and Oldies stations follow, then at the end of November the Christian AC and Christian Contemporary stations go with the flow. The complaint for years is that it's happening earlier and earlier every year. Let's see if the math bears that out.
FORMAT  vs. QUANTITY

• AC                 25
• Adult Hits       1
• Christian        7
• Classic Hits    1
• News/Talk      1
• Oldies            5
• Smooth Jazz   1
• Soft AC          2
• Urban Oldies  1 

 I am taking the top 25 markets as a sample because sorting all 400+ Xmas stations is absurd. Below are all the Xmas stations in the top 25 metros. I know that requires the assumption that the top 25 metros are representative of the nation as a whole. I am willing to do that to avoid more math. I am also limiting my sample to stations that flip to 100% Kris Kringle. These stations more reliably make the flip giving me a better data set separate from all other variables. I have also merged Christian Con and Christian AC because I din't think the trades reliably distinguish between the formats, News and Talk get the same treatment as well. I'll follow the raw numbers with some pretty graphs I promise. This is only about 45 radio stations and more manageable. I have eliminated a few for not flipping consistently as they do not contribute data to trending in any direction. Because formats are not static, this is an expected anomaly in the data (see above).

I'm comparing 2003 through 2001 for no reason except those are the years that I have in my data set. And yes, I know that there are probably some errors in my data set. I am assuming further that we can discard outliers and press onward. In the final set I have 34 stations, and out of a churning 400 or so that's about a 8.5% sample... much better odds than they give medical research.(totals below)

I sumed the movement by year, then divided by the number of samples. In effect that averages annual change since 2003. Admittedly I have a much larger sample in the present than I have in the past, complicating matters, it sounds dubious but the trend line shows a pretty tepid trend that's believable.

Basically even the years with the largest samples still show negative motion, as in the flip occurring earlier than it did in prior years.The diminishing returns could be the earlier small sample set or that we have reached a point as which flipping earlier has an adverse effect on ratings. Ratings and profit ultimately drive these decisions. I'd like to discern the median flip date from each year and rerun this set of numbers as a double check... but I really don't expect a varying result. If you want to challenge me please feel free to use my raw data set. You can download it here.

Navidad en Español!

A real life story of novelty right before the holiday. Clear Channel in their own weird dystopian way have debuted a new, arguably experimental format in Tucson on 97.1 KTZR-FM. It's only been a couple days and most of the airplay has on the overnights so far. But I expect since they had the initiative to do it at all, that they'll go 24/7 sometime after thanksgiving.

Clear Channel picked a rimshotter in a small market to roll this out. It has all the hallmarks of a taste test. their tower of off to the South West of Tucson. It's location because of terrain and other forces is weak in the northern suburbs robbing them of full metro coverage that might otherwise be possible.  Despite large Hispanic populations in Tucson and it's southern suburbs they scrape the bottom of the Arbitron ratings book regularly. In 2003 they debuted a Spanish format for the first time under the brand Suave 97.1.  That was dropped in favor of La Preciosa which is more of a Spanish classic hits. They re-branded as Mia 97.1 about this time last year. My suspicion is that this format is the work of a local programmer.

Everybody knows the Jose Feliciano version of Feliz Navidad.  It's played on Spanish and pop stations alike. But there's a lot more Christmas music out there in the Spanish language. The playlist on KTZR is a strange blend of nostalgia such as Bing Crosby and brand new Spanish covers of yule time standards. If this succeeds in the ratings book, I'd expect to see a lot more of this next year. This will of course create demand for a slew of new releases. Here are some highlights from the play list in no order whatsoever:

Darlene Love - Christmas
Edith Marquez - Noche De Paz
Andrea Bocelli - God Bless Us Everyone
Ana Gabriel - Amarga Navidad
Grupo Mojado - Regalo A Santa Claus
El General - Jingle Belele
Bing Crosby - Do You Hear What I Hear
Belinda Rodolfo - El Reno De La Nariz Roja
Tito El Bambino - Feliz Navidad
Luis Miguel - Blanca Navidad
Los Bukis - Navidad Sin Ti
Andy Williams - Sleigh Ride
Juan Gabriel - 24 De Diciembre
Jon Secada - Feliz Navidad
Daniela Romo - Blanca Navidad
Perry Como - Winter Wonderland
Pedro Fernandez and Ricky Martin - Amigos Del Mundo
Raphael - El Tamborilero
Amalia Mendoza - Amarga Navidad
Luis Miguel - Navidad, Navidad
Los Fugitivos -  Triste Navidad
Mijares - Adeste Fideles
Ana Barbara - Dame Un Beso En Noche Buena
Daniela Romo - Blanca Navidad
Frank Sinatra -  Jingle Bells
Luis Miguel Te Deseos Muy Felices Fiestas
Nat King Cole - The Christmas Song
Aventura - El Burrito De Belen

Flipping Christmas

Unlike flipping the bird, flipping a house or flipping your wig, flipping to Christmas is traditional, and in some places regular as clockwork. Hundreds of U.S. radio stations drops their regularly scheduled formats and "flip" as we say in the biz to an all-Christmas music format.Each of these stations for sometimes as long as 60 days embraces a change from radio station to background muzak. The change matters because programmers, consultants, reps and everybody else still disagree what the effect of this is on ratings. There are changes to cume, and various demos. Specifically the female demo 25-54 doubles. On the other hand it's not unusual to lose half of your existing primary listeners. Generally speaking, TSL increases, but only in the sense that the radio is on, conscious listening essentially ends. Sure we all hear the hold music when we call the bank, but are we listening? No.

While many stations flip to all Xmas in early November, (yes some as early as September, I know) But there is a perceptible change on November 24th. On November 24th, the flip pays off, suddenly with Halloween and thanksgiving out of the way, perhaps a little frost on the ground people are willing to accept that Christmas is coming. So on the 24th, an uptick in listeners begins. See KODA case-study) AC Stations like WLTW, and WBEB see increases of 30-40% in their ratings.

Not to give you the idea that only AC stations flip or alternately that all AC stations flip. After country, AC is the most common radio format. It's logical that a large number of the 200+ Xmas stations will be from AC as they are every year. But a large number of christian AC and Oldies stations flip as well. This year I've also noticed a number of Spanish stations, especially the "La Preciosa" brand mixing in some Hispanic holiday cheer.

Despite this known set-date, stations still behave somewhat differently. They flip formats cold, or evolve toward 100% Xmas saturation from a base of one spin per hour. Some actually maintain a few weeks of a 50/50 split blending a Soft AC mix of artists like Elton John with CHR covers of Xmas classics. I don't want to give the idea that an all-Xmas format has to be dull. WRBQ in Tampa actually has forged their own Xmas playlist, not adhering at all to the expected list Sinatra/Burl Ives reruns.

It's pretty revolting actually. This year the Christmas flip will be studied more intensely than usual as Arbitron's PPM markets will be applied to a "holiday book" which will measure listening between December 13, 2007 and January 9, 2008.