“Woof, Woof, Woof. Bow, Wow, Wow. Arf, Bark, Arf, Bark, Woof!”

Ever since dogs started barking “Jingle Bells” and “Santa Got Run Over By A Reindeer,” Christmas music has given country (and rock) format programmers and personalities a big headache.  

Thanks to PPM panel measurement which can follow the same group of people’s radio usage for many months and years, we now know some things about what drives the country format’s annual fall swoon at the expense of Adult Contemporary and Christian stations going “all Christmas music.”

1.  As Mike O’Malley told Inside Radio last week, studies of country listeners going back more than a decade consistently find that less than 20% of country P-1 listeners say they’d be very interested in having their country station play all Christmas music while half tell researchers they wouldn’t be interested at all, making going solid Christmas tunes a very risky tactic in a competitive country battle unless your company owns two country stations.  In that case, it can benefit them both, one gaining 35+ female tuning and the other one acting as an alternative for younger and male country music fans.  The more new music intensive you are, the more dangerous it can be to go more than a month without exposing and familiarizing the core with fresh music.  When you go back to playing the country hits you need to refamiliarize your core with it, which can hurt familiarity scores that drive TSL and passion as the new year - and a new PPM month - begins.

2.  In diary markets it has always appeared that all-Christmas helps the upper-demo contemporary get a cume boost in the first month of two of the Winter survey.  Now, thanks to PPM, we know that’s more a result of top-of-mindness impacting what people write in diaries than it is real usage.  Once, all-Christmas was seen as a strategy.  Now, we know it’s just a tactic.  In PPM, normal listening patterns resume on December 26 and don’t have any residual impact in January or February.  Thus, in a PPM market any station contemplating solid Holiday music in November and December needs to pre-sell the event in advance.  Diary measurement may make it appear that buying those great Christmas season ratings in January and February is a bargain, but PPM proves that would be overpaying.

3.  PPM permits a microscopic view of usage patterns not possible in diary surveys as long as the sample is large enough to be reliable.  As a result, aggregating multiple markets, it’s possible to uncover precisely what drives month-to-month changes in cume and average quarter hour.  Most months, any sudden changes are likely driven by sample weighting alterations or households coming into or leaving the panel.  As Christmas music starts to dominate one or two stations in a market, it’s now possible to dig into it directly and see exactly how each station in town’s average monthly users react.  What we see appears to be more than a sample wobble.  It looks “real.”

4.  A&O&B has been carefully studying PPM, thanks to the help of direct marketing and rating analysis vendors, from the very first month of PPM measurement going all the way back to the first tests of the technology in Wilmington and Philadelphia many years ago.  Here’s what we’ve observed, thanks to help from Arbitron and Nielsen analysts:  the normal pattern of daypart and day-to-day recycling tends to continue as usual for a healthy country radio station.  However, non-stop Christmas music on a station that always shares 25-30% of the country station’s audience month after month does something astounding during the Holidays.  It creates NEW DAYPARTS for itself, times of the day and days of the week from that group of panelists when the country station’s average listener wasn’t even using radio in most months!

5.  PPM “time spend exposed” (TSE/AMA) per hour for that country station when under attack from a 100% Christmas music competitor remains steady.  Morning show, at work and weekend usage are generally more or less unchanged.  Except for one group of listeners, the ones who seem to want to get into the Holiday spirit as they prepare for Christmas.  They go Christmas shopping, wrap presents, decorate the house, the workplace.  They host and attend parties.  They plan for the family event.  They continue to listen to their usual morning show, don’t listen much less than normal to their favorite 24/7365 country station, but they also find themselves using the solid Christmas music station a lot - as much as an extra day a week of their total time with radio - at lunchtime when they go out to shop, in the evening and over every weekend at home when they wrap presents, decorate the tree, write Christmas cards and organize their wardrobe for a busy Season Of Giving.

To deflect such a tactic when half the audience really doesn’t desire all-Christmas is next-to-impossible, though you can, we’ve found, at least minimize the damage — by creating your own extra special, lifestyle-driven extraordinary depart usage drivers. 

The challenge, of course, is that playing 500 popular Christmas songs over and over for six weeks is relatively easy when compared to the creativity, innovation and hard work it takes to build enough of the kind of content that can compete with it in listeners’ minds for six to eight weeks every year.

Attempting to cure your first headache can make for a pretty big second one too.

Is It "Beginning To Sound A Lot Like Christmas"?

It has been seven years since Edison Research was tasked by the Country Radio Seminar to ask country listeners about their preferences in non-stop Holiday tunes (click the charts to enlarge them).

When it became obvious that the decision on what to do on a country radio station was so highly polarized on a national average basis, perhaps driven somewhat by religious preference, CRS stopped including the question in the national format tracking studies because every individual market is so unique, depending not only on theology but also many other factors ranging from how many country stations slice up the pie, the age of the market, if you can afford the luxury of going six weeks without playing any new music so that in January you must completely refamiliarize your core with all of the country hits that came out since mid-November,  whether other format stations like Christian AC or mainstream AC fill the void, etc.

This week, Billboard's midweek Top 40 and Country update publications provided a reminder that 70% of the country listeners that participated in those CRS studies have now aged into the next older target cell and 45-54 seven years ago is now largely 55-64.

Writer Rich Appel:  This year top 40 has been gifted with new and original songs from at least two core artists, Kelly Clarkson (“Underneath the Tree”) and Ariana Grande, who’s taken a page from Bieber’s playbook and releasing a new song each week for four weeks, two of those being originals. Republic Records executive VP Charlie Walk feels the four-song strategy for Grande, fresh off her new artist of the year win at Nov. 24’s American Music Awards, fills the void for top 40’s audience.  “There haven’t really been many contemporary artists putting out modern holiday music, and in the digital space we’re able to move quickly to bring it to Ariana’s massive fan base in time for the season.”

The CHR programmers Appel interviewed while noting that "Christmas begins with CHR" worry that even the best-known traditional Christmas favorites don't fit between the hits of today.

Journalist Phyllis Stark focused her attention on a country station in a market where two of the city's three country stations target younger, leaving the upper-demo one to go all Christmas again this year:  When KFKF Kansas City, Kan., flips the switch on Thanksgiving Day at 2 p.m., it will become the second country station this year to go all-Christmas, following KEGA Salt Lake City’s similar flip on Nov. 22. And like KEGA, this will mark KFKF’s third year stunting with all holiday music, a move that has generated huge ratings gains.  Other than its St. Jude Radiothon Dec. 4-5, KFKF will be churning out the holiday fare nonstop.

As country's target straddles both of the larger population groups on either side of the smaller Gen X cohort the decision of how much Christmas music to play at all and when to do it is making stations who target 18-44 more like Hot AC and CHR in this regard, while that seven year old research on it probably still holds true for you if your station's target resembles a traditional mainstream oldies based AC and is now largely 40+.

Country Radio Got Run Over By A Reindeer

Inside Radio says "some Christmas gains come at country’s expense" in the latest PPM monthlies, and there's no denying that Country female fans, especially, love those Holiday tunes (as an Edison Research study for CRS-2009 indicated).

Interest may have been declining over the years as more stations have branded as "all Christmas," but it was still as 60+/40- game this last time the tactic was studied nationally.

Another interesting factoid:  every single one of the PPM-rated country stations in markets where there are two country stations was down in the latest monthly, as of yesterday's monthly.

In Seattle, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Denver, Detroit, St. Louis, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, both country stations were down as Christmas music was up.

In the six PPM cities with only one country station as of yesterday, four also suffered clear-cut losses - Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington and Los Angeles - while two - San Diego and Miami not so much.

Miami, of course, had no Christmas music station this year.  In San Diego, KSON was down 6+ (5.9-7.2-6.0) but retained it's #1 market rank in spite of KYXY the all-Christmas station gaining on them a bit.

The one country station to go all Christmas, Wilks' KFKF/Kansas City exploded as a result of the Holly Jolly, 5.2-7.1-9.2 6+ in the last three monthlies. 

It's not possible to make iron-clad conclusions on 16 such disparate markets, but it seems at this point to look like:

1. You can be a bit more secure when you are alone in your format in PPM when a different format does a powerful tactic like all-Christmas.
2. Two stations sharing the same format tend to drive down the ratings of both stations, making them even more vulnerable to a strong assault on usage from a different format.  (is the PPM sample so small that it's better at consistently and accurately measuring usage and shares of format shares than it is for individual stations?)
3. If you own two country stations, taking one of them all-Christmas is a great fortressing strategy for at least a month or two while the Jingle Bells are ringing.

One thing for sure:  hat's off to the Lincoln Financial/San Diego crew for a great performance in the face of solid Christmas tunes in 2012.

Ya Can't Beat Charlie Brown

.. but it's nice to see that CMA Country Christmas, the first joint CMA-ABC effort at a Country Music Holiday special attracted 7.3 million viewers Nov. 29, and 4.3 million, Dec. 22, ranking in the top ten among all the December 2010 tinsel and holly TV.

Astral/London Creates 10,000 Smiles

Christmas came early in London and the gift was a community full of giant hearts.

Astral Media London and Canadian Tire's Annual Toys for Tots campaign brought in over 10,000 toys plus an additional $10,000 cash. Toys, food and clothes have been donated to help ensure that every child in the London area experiences the warmth, magic and spirit of giving this holiday season.

Cluster Operations Manager Barry Smith was blown away by the generosity of the community and after loading another huge truck with toys stated,

“the list of all who have donated is longer than Santa’s. Thanks to everyone for their Christmas spirit…there are just too many of you to thank personally. You are all on Santa’s nice list this year.”

Combined efforts from local military reservists who volunteered their time allowed Toys for Tots to help more than 2,000 families!

Agencies benefited include: Big Sisters, N'Amerind Friendship Centre, United Way, Youth Action Centre, Merrymount, Teen Challenge Farm, Glen Cairn Community Resource Centre, Middlesex London Health Unit, Boys and Girls Club, Pathways, Community Outreach, Children's Aid, London Abused Women's Centre and Single Women In Motherhood.

“Time” For Holidays ’08

My most evocative card of December came from Little Big Town, who even as their Nashville label suspended operations found time and a sense of humor to visually evoke the attitude we all have about financial projections for 2009 (or are they practicing for their annual visits to the dentist?).

What if the talking heads are correct and banks aren’t lending any of that $350 billion in bailout money because they feel like our world economy is now worth less than we all thought it was?

Last August I did a bit of punditry myself when I was interviewed by R&R Publisher Erica Farber: “The American people have not figured out yet that it’s highly likely our standard of living is never going to be as good as it has been in the past. These are very challenging times.”

With the luxury of hindsight, I wish I could say that I really did see precisely what was coming and moved my 401k to all cash right then, but I had no idea how bad it was going to get and how quickly. So, I take solace instead in the fact the American people appear to have chosen very well in November, cause for hope. Who knows if Barack and his team will be able to fix what ails us, but at least he is inspiring to someone with my perspective as his team navigates the many crises we face right now.

In any case, it seems like an excellent moment to invest as much as possible in the cherished things which hold their value, time .. with friends, loved ones and family.

And, so, here is my usual letter (written on my new MacBookPro, purchased thanks an an employee discount courtesy of our family Apple Genius John DiPanfilo in Atlanta). Four decades ago when I was 25, I would have tossed a letter like this in the trash without reading, but now I feel compelled to put one together so I keep getting the newsy ones in return from so many others which connect these annual dots in our busy lives.

As usual, I have some ’08 travel photos to share. Two friends and I drove all over Central and Eastern Europe, from (pictured) the Bierwagons of Cologne to Poland, Romania, even to the historic bridge in Mostar.

It was a transformative 26 days, highlighted by a final two weeks in Croatia, Slovenia, Bavaria, and Amsterdam just weeks after being surprised and honored to be inducted into the Country Radio Hall Of Fame with three generations of my immediate family on hand in Nashville for it, Keir Kornbau, her mom Judy and our Aunt Betty Hanzlick. In May, almost our entire family met in Grand Rapids for a lovely country club wedding of Ryan and Emily. It was the second year for a family reunion of sorts and even more relatives made the trip this year. Then, my sister Judy and I visited Denver in August and were guests in the homes of Keir, Ryan and Emily. At Thanksgiving, we had a houseful here as Adam, Amy, Kevin and Brennan from Pasco spent the week in our woods.

Now, it looks to be a snowy Christmas on Bainbridge Island. The residents and worker bees at 7699 are all hoping you had a good year too. No matter what 2009 holds, I sincerely wish for you and yours lots of ‘time’ .. to invest in the truly enduring and valuable.

Toby Keith And Stephen Colbert "Duet" To Christmas

Click here to get a preview, suitable for stealing for some silly Holiday imaging drops (with credit of course), of the very funny TK's musical contribution to Colbert's Christmas Special.

I'd link to the hilarious Willie Nelson segment of the show, but you wouldn't be able to see it through all the smoke..

We Need A Little Christmas Right Now

The Holiday Season this year is going to be difficult.

We are so fortunate in the radio business that we touch people intimately, personally and are in a position to make a positive difference in their lives every day.

Please take 20 minutes and watch this video (click to view and listen. You will want to watch it again and again!) from Bill Moyers Journal with Mark Johnson, the producer of a remarkable documentary about the simple but transformative power of music.

Start brainstorming now. What more could YOU and YOUR STATION do - to bring people together in our local communities during the Thanksgiving, Christmas and November-December Holidays to "inspire each other" and "make a difference together?"

What Happens To ARB In December?

Q: Why is it that AC does so well each December, and why did it do especially well in Fall of 2007?

A: The key to doing well in ratings 11 months a year is listening at work. In diaries, on average, almost 75% of all average quarter hours (and in the PPM in spite of cumes literally doubling, it’s still 50%) come from P-1 heavy users, the people who listen for 100 quarter hours a week or even more. Thus, under normal circumstances, the secret to doing well for country radio is targeting 25-54 non-ethnic individuals who work full time, at least 35 hours a week. Fulltime employed men are the heaviest users of radio. Women who are not employed full time tend to watch TV during the daytime hours and as a result listen to a lot less radio than the average radio user. Given these realities, a successful AC station must get at least 60% of its average quarter hours from ‘at work’ listening. A country station’s ideal profile is 33% of its AQH from at work, 33% from in car and 33% at home and other places. Then, comes the three weeks before Christmas and many listeners take time off work. So, the place where the majority of AQH comes from changes radically. Meanwhile, AC stations become the at home listening choice - especially for adult women - due to their solid Christmas music marketing and images.

That’s why, in PPM data, Arbitron has created a “13th month” which they call the Christmas book. AQH shares (which are of course a percentage of the available AQH audience) literally double for the solid Christmas music stations (B-101 in Philadelpha, for example, had a 25.2% share of adult listening the week before Christmas in the Philadelphia PPM data and then went right back to to 10 share the week after the Holiday).

As Arbitron's Gary Marince told the attendees at A&O's Pre-CRS client seminar, ".. the listening the Christmas stations pick up from the Country statiosn is in the form of 'occassions' and not a loss in cume or average time per occasion of listening."

No doubt, this is also the case in diaries as well, but due to monthly averaging, AC radio carries that December bump into the first two monthlies of the next quarter. It’s not because AC gets more listening in January and February as a result of the December at home AQH, it’s due to the monthly averages. In the face of this reality, to have a good fall book knowing that many of your listeners won’t be at work for a week or two of the survey period which makes it very hard if not impossible to keep your percentage of AQH from at work up to the levels you maintain the rest of the year, a country station needs to have an aggressive strategy to do as well as possible in the workplace during the first and second phases of the fall Arbitron survey and then play enough of your listeners’ favorite Christmas songs they can’t hear anywhere else while also balancing that with their favorite current, recurrent and power gold hits and encouraging the core to listen to you at home more than normal during those weeks away from their normal workplace. It’s a tricky balancing act because as research has shown for the last few years, about half of country’s heaviest users would love it if we played all Christmas music while the other half wouldn’t like that at all.

Next fall: get as many average quarter hours from at work as you can in the first nine weeks of the ARB survey period and then work to keep your partisans listening to you while they prepare for Christmas at home. Meanwhile, tell advertisers the Christmas book story and make sure they know that the distortions in the January and February rolling averages that make AC look stronger than it is are purely statistical and not real. The time to buy AC radio is the two or three weeks before Christmas, not in first quarter of the New Year.