Yeah. I get it. Almost every market that has a station that does the Holiday Hits flip sees an upward explosion in their ratings until January, when they return to their normal level. None of these A/C stations would have me as a regular listener, but the Christmas stuff would send me on permanent spin cycle. I will say that CHFI has improved since their Elevator Music/Candle Light & Wine Days. But only marginally.

paterson1 wrote:

I wonder why it seems that it is usually one station that has success flipping to all Christmas music (CHFI) and either nobody else does this or doesn't have similar results with audience growth.

Looks to be true in other markets.  Detroit has a WNIC which always has a huge jump in audience share after they flip to all Christmas but settle down to their usual 3rd or 4th position after. Detroit has one or two other stations that go all santa but don't have near the same success. 

Is this "Christmas Miracle" almost always limited to just one station per market?  Where I live we actually have two local stations that flip to all Christmas.  Magic 106 in Guelph is fairly new to the format and the veteran CHYM FM has been doing this for decades.  Worth noting that CHYM FM has been the most listened to station in Waterloo Region for a long time no matter what the season.  Magic for the last few years has flipped earlier than CHYM.

Stations cater to their audiences, duh. If you try to go up against a legacy all-Yule station, you're, at best, going to take half of their audience, and piss of your audience that historically has stuck with you non-Christmas music. The total number of people willing to listen to Christmas music does not increase just because another station is added into the fold

Despite having stations that dish out the Yule Gruel all year, SiriusXM gets serious about the holidays on Nov. 4th.

When does SiriusXM start playing Christmas music?