Friday, November 14, 2014

Chicago Radio: Santa Returns As WLIT PD

Traditional holiday favorite WLIT 93.3 FM/MYfm made the switch to Christmas music this rmoning at 12:01. It's the 14th year in a row, the iHeartMedia Hot AC station turned its music programming over to Santa Claus.

93.9 MYfm Program Director Mick Lee said: "Eleven months on 93.9MYfm you can hear Maroon 5, P!nk, Bruno Mars, Katy Perry and more variety from the 90's til now. But it's time to officially kick off Chicago's holiday season with non-stop Christmas music."

The flip to the all-Christmas format has come at different times each year. Last year, according to CRM, the flip occurred on November 14th at 4:50pm. In 2012, the holiday music full-time flip happened on November 9th at 11:16am. In 2011, the holiday music also happened on November 9th, but at 5:00pm. In 2010, the flip occurred on November 12th at just after 8:00am. In 2009, the holiday music started at 12:01am on November 14th, and in 2008, it started in the 8:00am hour of November 14th. In both 2007 and 2006, it started on November 2.

Back in 2005, the "Holiday Lite" started on November 18th, which at the time seemed early, although nowadays, that date would be considered much too late by station programmers and by the Christmas music faithful.

Regardless of the starting date, this annual event has always resulted in an incredible landslide of ratings for the station, not to mention bringing in a great deal of revenue for its owner. The "December" and "Holiday" Nielsen rating periods for the station are often nearly triple what they are during other times of the year, bringing the station up from the middle of the ratings to the very top.

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