Research: Santa Is A Great PD In December

The ratings experts at The Research Director have taken a look at the top 15 markets and compared the year-over-year performances – on a P6+ basis – of the home-to-metro stations that switched to all-Christmas in both 2013 and 2014. Of those markets, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood was the only one without a full-time holiday outlet.

Of the 17 stations they looked at (Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston-Galveston, and Philadelphia each had 2), 13 of them had better shares in 2014 versus 2013. Taken in aggregate, the winning stations increased their share by 16.1% overall. And, the “losing” stations should not be pitied – all still had monster shares.

There were major stories all around the country. WASH in D-C increased by 28.3% while Boston's WMJX exploded by 39.8%. At the same time, Triton reported that listening to broadcast-based streams fell 53% from earlier in the same month, while the pure plays dropped 12.6%.

The Research Director admits all-Christmas music is a quick high. And, this is a small fraction of all radio markets that does not take into account local influences and market conditions. Yet, as they see with severe weather and the News format – people know and use radio on a fairly consistent basis.