The initial shock of radio stations flipping their seasonal format to All-Christmas is in the rear-view mirror.
When the idea floated through radio halls, both listeners and programmers grumbled while reactions ranged from “This is genius!” and “This is ridiculous!”. Until boxcar Arbitron numbers delivered. Ratings so powerful, Arbitron (now Nielsen) was forced to create a magical 13th month in their ratings plan, The Holiday Book.
Holiday 2025 as Nielsen refers to it today runs from December 11, 2025 through January 7, 2026. Today virtually every market in America has at least one station that flips to Christmas music.
The title of First Adult Contemporary All-Christmas Station in a major market is a wrestling match between Phoenix’s KEZ (now KESZ) and KEZK in the early 1990’s, both owned by the now consolidated EZ Communications. We covered the timing of the All-Christmas format flips in this column earlier this month.
The other All-Christmas topic which brings spirited debate is playlist curation. Opinions are as vast as the “timing” topic. We asked a panel of All-Christmas veterans for their perspective on the titles recommended for playlist design.
Jonathan Little
Wisconsin Broadcasters Hall of Famer Jonathan Little is a household name in Madison, WI. He is a legendary Morning Man, Programmer and General Manager. Now the Owner and General Manager of Troy Research has plied his knowledge of best practices for All-Christmas for decades. He shares those thoughts with me.
Ratings tell the story. Christmas music produces additional Cume and increases Time Spent Listening. For stations going all-Christmas it’s an outreach opportunity. From my experience and observations of other people’s programming, familiarity is the most critical factor in curating Christmas music. At first blush that sounds like an “of-course” observation. But some programmers like to be adventurous with new Christmas songs. And there a few brand-new Christmas songs released every year. Be careful with those.
Johnathan Little’s Christmas Music Do’s and Don’ts:
- Do make familiarity your guide. Familiar artist or familiar song every time, every song. Often it’s both.
- Do play the classics by the original artists. (Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, Nat “King” Cole, Brenda Lee, etc.)
- Do play the classics by familiar artists in your format.
- Do play novelty classics, but never more than one per hour. (The Chipmunks, The Grinch, etc.) They carry tune-out potential.
- Don’t play a new Christmas song by a relatively new artist in your format.
- Don’t play a Christmas song with high burn even though it’s a classic. Research will guide you.
- Don’t overplay the same artist. Attempt to give 30 minutes separation. At least 20 minutes.
Some discoveries in the last few years with our research. Three sometimes overlooked and underplayed tracks.
- Downhere “How Many Kings”
- Faith Hill “A Baby Changes Everything”
- Tasha Layton “Rockin Around the Christmas Tree”
Research is marketing! Go for listener engagement. To achieve additional promotion that you’re “The Christmas Station” post a link to your Christmas Music Survey on your homepage. “Help us curate Christmas music this year by taking our Christmas survey. Thanks in advance for helping program your Christmas favorites.” Troy Research can help.
John Frost
When I made the transition from secular to Contemporary Christian Radio in the early 2000’s, John Frost was a trusted mentor. In his four decades of leadership across all formats, John has mentored countless successful on-air shows and programming leaders. John is widely known for applying mainstream radio strategies and research disciplines to Christian radio. He has driven the All-Christmas charge in Christian Music Radio for years and shared his thoughts as well.
Is it Christmas music programming good or bad? Right or wrong? Hip or stale?
Viewed simply as a programming tactic, programming all Christmas music is about as crazy as it gets. Your listeners come to you because you play the music they love (Chris Tomlin, Big Daddy Weave, Hercules and the Chicken Fat People). Now you’ve decided to stop playing the Christian music they love to start playing Burl Ives and Brenda Lee. That’s like ESPN deciding to stop carrying sports. How in the name of Alvin and the Chipmunks is THAT supposed to be a good idea?
However, viewed as a programming strategy it’s a different thing altogether.
RISK is something every business, every product, and every radio station must overcome in the Adoption Process. With no offense to Ronald McDonald, no one you’ve ever met considers McDonalds their favorite hamburger place. Yet McDonalds is the 6th most valuable brand in the world according to Forbes. How’d that happen? It’s not because they have the best burger, but because they flawlessly deliver a consistent experience whether in Dallas, Dublin, or Dubai.
In other words, McDonalds has virtually eliminated RISK.
When done well, Christmas music programming totally eliminates RISK for a new listener. The unfamiliar music is replaced by music they’ve known and loved since they sat on Santa’s knee as a kid. And Christmas is a holiday that is foundational to our Christian faith. This strategy wouldn’t work on Ground Hog Day.
I’ll never forget the story told to me by my talented friend Tom Fridley. He spent a season working in the post office, where the dozens of employees went about their business of sorting the mail isolated in their cubicles listening on the headphones to their individual pop, country, rock, or AC station. Something interesting happened when the Christmas music started. The headphones came off, and everyone in the office listened to one station, the Christmas music radio station.
Christmas is the largest possible “shared interest” for our format. It allows stations to become instantly familiar as we connect to Christmas memories, shopping, decorating the tree, the local parade, the neighborhoods with the best Christmas lights, the dynamics of family get togethers, and the church Christmas pageant.
Stations tend to play a tighter list than throughout the year, primarily because there are fewer songs to choose from. There are also so many different versions of the same song. Stations tend to stay away from novelty Christmas songs (“Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”), that would be out of sync with the station’s Beliefs and Values position. Some classics make their way into the playlist because they have been reintroduced to a younger generation, such as “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” in Home Alone.
Styles of Christmas music by preference:
- Traditional songs by pop/classic artists
- Traditional songs by Christian artists
- Originals by Christian artists
- Originals by secular artists
Tactically, replacing the regular playlist with Christmas music makes no sense at all. Strategically, it may be the most important decision for growth that a station can make.
I have worked with numerous Christian music stations that have reached #1 in their market in the Christmas season or reached one million in cume, once considered impossible for a CCM station.
Alex Rawls
Jonathan and John’s perspectives are solid for terrestrial radio. What about All-Christmas Music Superfans outside radio who also create lean-forward Christmas Playlists? That brings us to Alex Rawls, New Orleans based writer and podcaster whose work has appeared in Spin, Rolling Stone, Offbeat, and The Times-Picayune among others. Alex has what you might call, a different take.
I come from a campus radio and alternative press background. I’m almost always interested in something new or interesting that the mainstream overlooked. I still love the thrill of discovering something new or simply new to me, and that applies to Christmas music too. I want to hear somebody find an interesting, unexpected way into canonical Christmas songs, or figure out how to write a good song within the familiar confines of Christmas music.
When I make Christmas playlists, I have a few ideas in mind as starting places. Most people hear Christmas music as background music, so I make playlists that will fit into people’s lives. I don’t need to show off my most outrageous discoveries of the year. I’d rather pick songs that don’t demand attention but reward it when it’s paid to them.
I also buy the broadcasters’ belief that people approach Christmas music from a nostalgic place. They’ll also cut a little slack if you earn it though. I lean on familiar songs, sounds and voices, but not all together. “White Christmas” is beautiful, but I’ll play Clyde McPhatter’s version, not Bing’s. Minneapolis R&B singer Alexander O’Neal was part of the music community that introduced us to Prince, and his version of “The Little Drummer Boy” livens the song up with those funky roots.
Similarly, Brenda Lee’s a part of America’s Christmas. I want to hear her voice during the holidays, but I’ll hear her sing “Papa Noel” or “I’m Gonna Lasso Santa Claus.” From church, we’ve heard the organ play Christmas music, so when in doubt I’ll go to an instrumental organ version of a Christmas song. Booker T & the MGs Christmas album, “In the Christmas Spirit,” might be one of the best.
I think there are two modern Christmas classic albums, “A Joyful Sound” by Kelly Finnigan and “Socks” by JD McPherson. Both are more overt in the way they reference the past. Finnigan’s retro R&B hearkens back to the psychedelic soul of the late 1960s and ‘70s and groups like The Rotary Connection. The instruments and the overall song recall that era, so every song sounds like a lost 45 on a regional label that you lucked out and discovered. McPherson’s echoes go back to the 1950s as he tried to write the songs that Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller should have written for The Coasters but didn’t. They’re fun and often funny on their own merits, and exquisitely crafted.
If I have a basic Christmas playlist guiding principle, it’s putting the listeners’ interests ahead of my own. I’m still picking songs with my own aesthetics, but I think about how they’ll land. One year, I found Los Del Rio’s “Macarena Christmas,” and I thought the existence of the record was so funny that I couldn’t wait to put it on holiday playlists. It never happened, though. It never fit. The change to it from almost any song was too jarring.
For what it’s worth, I tend to pull together 3 to 4 hours of Christmas music and encourage people to hear it on shuffle. You can hear one of my playlists from last Christmas in a piece I wrote for Nola.com here. Another accompanied an appearance I did last year on WBUR’s “Here and Now”. Yo can read that one here. Both of these are shorter and tastes of music to help open up people’s Christmas playlists.
Conclusion
Development of an All-Christmas playlist is more than just simple programming. It’s strategy. Or in Alex’s world, just plain fun.
For radio, the balance of Gold Standards with “newer” hits while salting in a few surprises allows your brand to connect emotionally with the sound of the season. Done well and with intention, you’re not just a radio station – you are the holiday spirit one song at a time.
Reach Jonathan Little at jlittle@troyresearch.net, John Frost at john@goodratings.com and Alex Rawls at Alex@myspiltmilk.com.
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Kevin Robinson is a passionate award-winning programmer, consultant and coach – with multi-formats success all over the country. He has advised numerous companies including Audacy (formerly Entercom Communications), Beasley Broadcast Group, Westwood One, Midwest Communications, Townsquare Media, Midwest Family Broadcasting Group, EG Media Group, Federated Media, Kensington Media, mediaBrew Communications, Starved Rock Media, and more. He specializes in strategic radio cluster alignment, building lean-forward tactics and talent coaching – legacy and entry-level – personalities.
Known largely as a trusted talent coach, Kevin is the only personality mentor who’s coached three different morning shows on three different brands in the same major market to the #1 position. His efforts have been recognized by The World Wide Radio Summit, Radio & Records, NAB’s Marconi, and he has coached CMA, ACM and Marconi Award-winning talent. He is also in The Zionsville High School Hall of Fame as part of the 2008 inaugural class. Kevin is an Indiana native – living near Zionsville with his wife of 39 years, Monica and can be reached at kevin@robinsonmedia.fm.
