Way More Than 12 Days of Christmas

Roy Solloway insists he’s no Scrooge. He’s not a Grinch. He just thinks there aren’t enough partridges and pear trees for 35 days of Christmas.

So he was “a little peeved” to find his favorite station--KOST-FM (103.5)--had begun playing wall-to-wall Christmas music at noon Nov. 20, and won’t stop until midnight Christmas Day.

“For the whole month? That’s a little ridiculous,” said Solloway, a 43-year-old Superior Court clerk in Laguna Niguel who says he’s been a fan of KOST for 15 years. “It’s just so early.

“You’re going to get sick. It’s not going to be special,” he said. “You look forward to hearing these songs. Now it’s just going to get on your nerves.”

But the programmers at KOST believe there can’t be too much of a good thing. “Holiday music always triggers fond memories and warm feelings,” said Jhani Kaye, KOST’s station manager. “With the holidays approaching, people are kinder to each other.

“We were planning on doing it Thanksgiving Day, then we decided to do it early,” he said. “We wanted to be the first to do this in L.A.”

It’s a move KOST’s parent company, Clear Channel Communications, has been making for years in other markets but never before in Los Angeles. This year, the media giant will be going all-Christmas, all the time at about 75 of its 1,100 stations nationwide, said Sean Compton, vice president of programming.

“We had a few advertisers call and complain, until they realized we’re setting the mood for the season,” Compton said. When listeners hear Christmas music, they want to go out Christmas shopping, he explained.

At one Clear Channel station in Phoenix, which has gone all-Christmas for six years, it jumped from eighth to first in ratings among listeners in the sought-after 25 to 54 age group, he said. Stations in Orlando, Fla., and Oklahoma City saw similar gains, which even carried over after the holidays. Those improvements have led to competition--other radio chains have seen the success and want to copy it, he said.

That spurred Clear Channel to start with the “fa-la-las” at its Grand Rapids, Mich., station the weekend before Thanksgiving, fearing a competitor would beat them to it.

“How many all-Christmas-music stations do you need in one market?” asked Clear Channel spokeswoman Pam Taylor. “Do you want to be the second one in?”

KOST switched from its regular playlist of adult contemporary hits such as “Breathe” by Faith Hill, “Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac and “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers, to “Joy to the World” by Jewel, “The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole and “Last Christmas” by Savage Garden.

“We had some initial complaints because we started paying the music before Thanksgiving,” Kaye said, but the favorable comments are tipping the scales as Christmas gets closer.

Solloway, meanwhile, offers a different reaction. Last week, he and his co-workers were listening to a San Diego station, but the reception was poor in their building. He suggested switching to KOST.

“I listened for 15 to 20 minutes,” then realized the carols just kept on coming, he said. After an advertisement explained the format change, Solloway e-mailed the station’s morning-show hosts, Mark Wallengren and Kim Amidon, saying, “Goodbye. See you in January.”

“This is too much. And they play the same Christmas songs over and over--who wants to hear Christina Aguilera sing ‘Silent Night’ at 7 in the morning?” Solloway asked. “It’s like the most awful version I’ve ever heard.”

It’s not silent, that’s for sure.

“What about the people who aren’t exactly religious or Christian or who don’t want to hear this?”

Apparently, even those who are have their limits. Contemporary Christian music station KFSH-FM (95.9) had considered going to all Christmas music, said programming director Chuck Tyler, but a survey of 3,000 listeners found that 80% wanted the station to stick to its format.

Because Clear Channel owns eight stations in the Los Angeles area, Tyler surmised that the company can take a risk with one, and direct listeners who tire of the holiday songs to its other two adult contemporary stations, KBIG-FM (104.3) and KYSR-FM (98.7). But KFSH listeners probably felt they had no other station to turn to for their music, Tyler said.

KFSH has started sprinkling Christmas music into its programming and will increase the amount as the holiday approaches, he said, adding that the station may go nonstop for the 12 days of Christmas, or start on the final weekend.

Tyler added that he thinks stations are playing more spiritually themed Christmas music because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “Maybe I’m just more sensitized to it. But it seems like it.”

Kaye said Christmas music, in general, “seems to be a secret weapon, as it were, for adult contemporary stations this year, especially in light of the events of [Sept. 11].” He said people are seeking the comfort and reassurance of the holidays, and the music that evokes those feelings.

Solloway has no problem with that; he just wants to do it in his own time. “I love Christmas music,” he said, citing his collection of 35 holiday CDs--he particularly likes “When My Heart Finds Christmas” by Harry Connick Jr. “I just don’t want to hear it 24 hours a day.”