Every year stations start adding Christmas music earlier than the year prior and the handful of stations that go all Christmas make that flip sooner. Why? Because research and data shows us that people want to listen to Christmas music sooner than we traditionally thought. Outside of that radio has always been good at imaging around holidays, themed holiday weekends and holiday specific contests and promotions. So, there’s an argument to be made for wrapping all of that together and turning our All-Christmas stations into Seasonal Stations year-round. Here’s some thoughts on how and why to do that.
Start with a broad-based soft AC, mix or classic hits station that plays nothing but hits, within our market(s). Then use every major holiday to shift the format a bit to fit that specific holiday. For instance leaning into love songs ahead of Valentine’s Day, patriotic songs around the 4th of July and spooky tunes closer to Halloween. Deciding how deep to go on each depending on how many legitimate hits there are in our market(s) that fit those holidays. But, not getting overly obsessed with tempo, mood or energy rules because that will absolutely ebb and flow based on the season. However, I would argue so do listening habits. So, this allows the station to match that.
Plus, it’s not just about the holidays it’s also about the seasons. Depending on when the four seasons start and end in our market(s) we could also adjust the format to fit that season and fill in between those major holidays.
Make listener engagement a priority. In manned hours have talent solicit and air seasonal requests, do seasonal live and interactive video streams, do seasonal phone topics and seasonal contests. In unmanned hours do the same by pushing them to the website to capture additional audio and video and redirect them to social pages to comment, like and share.
All of this is infinitely more sponsorable than most radio formats because it’s built around things that sales staffs tend to excel at selling, like holiday greetings, specialty promotions, themed weekends and sponsorable events put on by others (the best kind because they’re all upside). Plus, it enhances all of the typically boring (but sponsorable) service elements on the station like weather, news and traffic by wrapping them in the seasonal and holiday themes.
I’m all for stations taking more risks, which they should. One of the things that make it hard for radio to compete with digital is how safe we play it compared to how edgy digital competitors are. But, this isn’t really a risky move. It’s a safe bet as long as we’re taking a data driven approach and using market level song consumption data to choose the music.
If you’re thinking, many people have tried multi-format, eclectic stations that cross genres and failed miserably. A) They were doing that with worse data than we have now, B) they generally have a loosely defined target audience and C) this is no different than stations that build around “Fun”, “Feel Good”, “Upbeat” or “Dance”. It’s essentially a themed station that gives itself the flexibility to always be topical and adjust to what the listeners want and when they want it.
What do you think? Would a Seasonal Station work in your market and have you tried something similar to this? Comment below or email me at Andy@RadioStationConsultant.com.
Pic designed by Freepik.com.