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It’s that time of year again as the radio trades track which stations are going all-Christmas. There is always some station that wants to start around Halloween (usually not the top-rated outfit in town) but most wait until mid-November or so to flip. We’ve also read that Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” is the top-testing Christmas song as has happened many times in the past.
Last year (see my 11/20/23 column), I wrote about how the day-by-day numbers look for Christmas music in PPM. The peaks tend to be right around the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and very near the holiday itself, often with huge shares. In between, nothing major but the averages are always good.
That’s fine, but the diary markets need some attention. Even though the Fall survey ends on December 4, there will be interest in holiday music prior to that date. There are a couple of tricks you should do before the end of the survey.
Let’s go back to the 25 characters you can register with Nielsen. First, check what your stations have registered. Some of the words are “untouchable”, for example, if like most stations, you use a unique identifier (“Wolf”, “Hot”, “Hank”), that is sacrosanct as it’s likely what the majority of your diarykeepers write down.
But there are likely some more words you may not need that badly. Remember, your call letters and frequency are automatic for the Nielsen diary service so there is no need to use 105.9 or 92.3. You should put in your rounded number (106 or 92). But how about adding the word “Christmas” as part of your allocated 25 characters? You can make changes to your “station name” online in the Nielsen system. Just take something out and add “Christmas” or “holiday” or whatever.
The first question is why bother? Well, diarykeepers occasionally write down “Christmas music” and nothing else as an entry. An editor has to figure out if credit can be given. If a station has “Christmas” in their station name, you’ve just made a Nielsen editor’s life a little easier.
Your next question may be something to the effect of “I’m the PD of a news/talk or sports station and I don’t play any Christmas music”. Or perhaps you are overseeing a music station or two or three, but the A/C station across the street is the holiday music station in your market. Do you play any Christmas music? Just about every music station does. Are you talking about the holidays at all? I believe the proper term is “gaming the system”.
Some readers may be the GM/PD/MD for the big Christmas station in the market. If you’re running wall-to-wall holiday music when you read this, check what your competitors have registered. If they’re not the holiday music station, complain to your Nielsen rep. When I was at Cumulus, I used to check the station names on a regular basis and if something looked fishy, an email to Nielsen would follow quickly. Most of the time, I was sending emails to a Cumulus PD requesting that they change something in their station name.
Of course, you don’t want to waste the word “Christmas” on listening from January until mid-November. Make a note to change the station name back to the previous version in January when you return from the holidays.
If you’re in a PPM market, you’re probably thinking this doesn’t apply to you. Within your metro, that’s right. However, if you have a signal that goes into the non-metro area, you should make sure your 25 characters are up to date. That’s because you have diaries listening to you and while you may not be very interested, the networks that you’re affiliated with do care.
The RADAR network service is gone, but the networks are using Nielsen’s Nationwide service which covers all the TV DMAs, not just radio metros. The networks want every quarter hour they can get, and you can help them without doing much work at all. Make sure your 100KW signal is getting maximum credit wherever it can be heard, and the network folks will thank you for it.
Even if you don’t want to play the “let’s see if I can get some credit for playing Christmas music when my competitor is the Christmas music station” game, make sure your 25 characters are up to date. You may not have to change the 25 characters for years if you don’t change format, so this won’t add to your workload.
Take a few minutes, make sure you’re getting all the credit you deserve and perhaps some you don’t deserve.
Let’s meet again next week.
