Christmas in October?!?!

[Cynette]

Personally, I think this is pretty funny. What to play on a radio station when you can't afford to play anything else? Ahh Christmas Carols! So plentiful and the royalties have to be miminal! And there are all of theses collections and assortments so you could put on one CD and ignore it for an hour! The only thing better would be 93 days of polka music!!!

Many other radio stations just hold a brief period of Christmas music on or around June 25 - the halfway mark just to get us lovers of the holiday season through the long hot summers. Its kind of like way back in kindergarten when they celebrated summer birthday birthdays on the 6th month anniversary so that every kid could have a special day!

[JaneYoung]

I have a large collection of Christmas music from over the years.
It isn't the music on the radio, although I like that as well.
I start loading the CD player in my car with the sounds of Christmas in about 2 weeks and it will go through the end of December. One of my favorite things to do is go to an awesome store here in Austin and find new artists and new Christmas CDs.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Kyle Love

We can get 93.1 in Kokomo, and I was scanning through the stations today, and was dumbfounded when I heard Christmas music. Emmis has sealed its fate in my book.

Some people on the forums of the newspaper site were glad that the traditionally hip-hop/teen music is gone, but their age is not in that group. Indy is slowly moving towards having no music stations for the teenage group.

The ratings for 93.1 were good but they just couldn't sell advertising.

WIBC's ratings are actually down but the air time sells. It's just plain economics.

Ipods, MP3 players, internet music services have made that 12-24 demographic unprofitable for many stations.

The local ESPN radio affiliate is a low power station. Emmis saw an opportunity to take that programming away and put it on a 50,000 watt station.

You can't blame Emmis for wanting to make money.

[Ashley Weed]

My favorite thing is watching the kids Trick-or-Treat in the King of Prussia Mall the weekend before Halloween, with the beautiful 50 ft Christmas trees and wreaths all decorated throughout the mall.

[Jay H 237]

Originally Posted by mtaman02

Out here in NYC the X-Mas songs usually start making their appearance in the beginning of Nov. BUT they aren't played heavily up until Thanksgiving or days afterward and usually last till about mid-Jan depending on the station. Its a competition. When one station starts in the others chime in as well. It's all about how many listeners they can get and how they get them.

That's how it is here, although we're basically in the same radio market.

I can still get 97.5 (WALK-FM) and 100.7 (WHUD) up here with no problems. On good days I can also get the station I used to listen too when I lived in NJ, 100.3 (Z-100).

For fun one of the local stations up here went to X-mas music for an hour after the morning show went off in July since it was going to be the hottest day of the year. 96.5 (WTIC-FM) put on the X-mas music right after Gary Craig's morning show went of the air for the day. They were just trying to get your mind off the heat!