Clear Channel On Listeners Who Hate Christmas Music: “Those People Don’t Exist”

So just as quickly as two Chicago radio stations prepared to battle each other with competing all-holiday playlists nearly two months before Christmas, WCKG decided to “continue running highlight clips of afternoon star Steve Dahl.” But in case you thought this swift change of plans on the part of WCKG might mean radio stations are rethinking the season-long holiday-saturation format, the bean counters at Clear Channel, which owns WLIT, want to assure you that if you hate Christmas music you’re shit out of luck for the forseeable future.

Frankly, Darren Davis, Clear Channel Radio Chicago vice president of programming and operations, was pleased [by WCKG backing off].

“Everyone thinks it’s a good idea to be the alternative for all those people who don’t like Christmas music,” Davis said. “But I see the ratings every year that show those people don’t exist.”

WLIT also launched its Christmas offensive on Nov. 2 last year. Its cumulative listenership among women between the ages of 25 and 54, which had been 250,000 for the first six weeks of the ratings period, shot up past 400,000 in the first week of yuletide fare.

“And it grew steadily until the week before Christmas, when it was over 600,000,” he said. “The sweet spot is clearly right around here, so what the heck.”

How can people want more of this stuff after six or seven weeks of solid merriment? There’s some Twilight Zone-esque mind control plot going on behind the scenes here, I just know it.

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Chaos At WCKG [Chicago Tribune]