Will St. Nick Be the Sugar PUMM Fairy in 2020?

NuVoodoo marketing guru Mike O’Connor asked us to run a quick study to look into the appetite for and timing of Christmas music this year. With PUMM still down dramatically in many PPM markets, stations are looking for strong plays to lift ratings this fall. Also, many diary markets have their first December monthlies to think about.

We know All-Christmas station numbers rise more quickly with a little marketing help. It’s a matter of finding appropriate marketing tactics to match the kind of budgets that can be scrounged up in this most abnormal year.

With the help of our data operations team, led by Lisa Cobert, we collected a thousand interviews with adults 18-64 nationwide over the October 17th weekend. We’ve never looked into Christmas music programming on a national basis before, though client studies in prior years give us a few anecdotal guideposts. The bottom line is that we see strong anticipation of holiday music in our research; a little stronger among women than men, but relatively flat across the age demographics here.

These numbers are high compared to client studies we’ve completed in recent years. Many of us are yearning for something to look forward to as we come down the home stretch of 2020. Surprisingly, the strongest interest in Christmas music is among CHR partisans, where nearly 7 in 10 are primed for Santa’s return.

Mike O’Connor and I recorded a short video showing the timing of anticipating listening to all-Christmas stations among the sample and offering up ideas for marketing for all-Christmas formats here. It may not be the best holiday special you view this year, but it’ll only take five minutes. As always, we’re glad to discuss the findings and possible marketing programs. Shoot us an email at TellMeMore@NuVoodoo.com.

Santa comes but once a year. Let’s make sure he arrives on time in your market.