Posted by Bud on November 12, 2010 at 10:01:32:
WLIT-FM has pulled the switch. For the tenth November in a row, "The Lite" is now "The Holiday Lite," having dropped its regular Adult Contemporary programming and now gone to 100% Christmas music. With the initial playing of "Jingle Bell Rock" by Bobby Helms, the station will now be playing only Holiday tunes until December 26th.
A few weeks ago, the WLIT-FM website posted up their annual Christmas Countdown Clock, changed the background to snowflakes, candy canes and Christmas colors, and began streaming non-stop holiday music. As expected, it started the annual frenzy of questions, with everybody wanting to know "When does the Holiday Lite begin?" That question, for this year anyway, has been answered.
The flip to the all-Christmas format has come at different times each year. 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. In 2005, it started on November 18th.
Regardless of the starting date, this annual event has always resulted in a landslide of ratings for the station. December's ratings 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.
Every year at this time, WLIT faces the same controversy. It has to do with the station playing the very same extremely limited playlist that every Clear Channel AC station plays nationwide. The songs aired are basically the same handful of songs performed by a small handful of artists. For those who have the station on all day, it is quite easy to hear the very same song numerous times -- sometimes by different singers, but often by the same singer that you heard just a few hours before. Even with those complaints, Clear Channel keeps on playing those few Adult Contemporary Holiday songs and collects all those amazing Holiday ratings.
Fa-la-lala-la. La-la. La. La.