Weihnachtsspartenkanal!
(NYT) As trends in radio go, this one arrived in New York long after it had swept through places like Salt Lake City and San Diego, boosting ratings but leaving some listeners wondering how many more times they would have to listen to "Jingle Bells." The trend is all Christmas music, all the time. All right, not all the time, just the time between Thanksgiving and Dec. 25. Not one but two Manhattan stations, WLTW-FM and WPLJ-FM, have adopted all-Christmas formats this year. Stealing a slogan, then, is irresistible: You give them 22 minutes, and they'll play Nat King Cole's "Christmas Song" and "A Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Jingle Bell Rock." But "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"? Only on WPLJ. "Our audience doesn't appreciate that kind of humor," said Jim Ryan, who has programmed every song on WLTW since 1996. So Christmas is not only in the air, it is on the air.