Christmas radio sets a new bar in 2015

Whether you are digging out from the winter’s first epic northeast snowstorm, or lamenting this past weekend’s NFL conference championship results, Christmas can seem like a distant memory. But for radio programmers, the recent release of Nielsen’s holiday portable people meter data has some formats basking in the afterglow of a particularly generous holiday listening season. With each passing year, the buildup to and payoff from switching to an “all-Christmas” format continues to pay dividends. In 2015, 528 radio stations nationwide adopted a holiday programming format, which was just one station shy of 2014’s record of 529 stations. Either way you slice it, “all-Christmas” radio is a big deal on the airwaves, and the holiday book results prove that out.