Posted by YULETUNES on January 27, 2011 at 12:45:17:
Listeners get lost: Why radio�s �Holiday Lite� has little afterglow
January 27th, 2011 @ 12:00 am
Ordinarily, if a radio station lost half its audience � nearly two million listeners � virtually overnight, that would be cause for alarm.
So what�s all the celebrating about at Clear Channel Radio?
Wednesday�s news reports and blog posts on the just-released Arbitron survey covering the four weeks from Dec. 9 to Jan. 5 touted the sensational performance of the �Holiday Lite� Christmas music format on adult contemporary WLIT-FM (93.9). �Chicagoans really loved holiday music format,� read one headline. �That Holiday Punch Is Pretty Powerful,� read another.
True enough, Lite FM nearly quadrupled its overall audience share in just two months � skyrocketing from 10th place with a 3.6 percent share in November to first place with a 12.1 in the so-called holiday book. Credited with �the steepest trajectory of any big-market Christmas station, percentage-wise,� Chicago�s Clear Channel outlet exceeded its own performance last year when it jumped from a 3.2 to a 10.2.
But look a little closer at the numbers and you�ll find the harsh reality: The moment Lite FM turns off the �Holiday Lite� and resumes its regular adult-contemporary format, those Christmas visitors vanish. In the final week of the Portable People Meter survey, the station dropped a full 10 share points � plummeting from a 14.7 to a 4.7. In terms of cumulative weekly audience, that represented a net loss of 1,992,400 listeners.
As crazy as people may be to hear �Holly Jolly Christmas� and �Jingle Bell Rock� over and over and over in November and December, they�re gone as soon as �Viva La Vida� and �Just the Way You Are� return to the regular rotation.
�It�s like one of those spectacular Winter Olympics ski jump events that quickly leads to a landing way down in the valley � and roughly back where Lite had started,� Radio-Info.com executive news editor Tom Taylor observed after last year�s fall back to earth. �The halo sometimes doesn�t last very long at all.�
So if advertisers and media buyers realize that the �Holiday Lite� is just a stunt to hype the ratings, how does it help the station�s bottom line the other 10 months of the year? To Clear Channel bosses, it�s all a matter of degree.
�We naturally expect to see some erosion post-holiday,� said Tony Coles, program director of Lite FM and vice president of programming and operations at Clear Channel Chicago. �However, the station remains Top 3 with both women 25-54 and adults 25-54.� Even with the steep drop-off, he noted, Lite FM�s performance in the fourth week of the holiday book was 18 percent higher than the same week in 2008 � and 24 percent higher than this time last year.
�This is the best post-Christmas performance we have seen in PPM,� Coles added.