No surprise here, really -- at 5 p.m. Friday afternoon, KVIL/103.7 FM took a break from its adult-contemporary "Lite" format and switched to its Christmas "Lite" format. Sure, it's sunny and mild outside, and Thanksgiving hasn't happened yet, but KVIL has been doing this in mid-November for several years.
The switch was kind of clever/cute, as the last non-holiday song played was Taylor Swift's Back to December, which afternoon personality Leigh Ann Adams outro'd with a bunch of spoken "fa-la-la-la-las."
And listeners eat it up. KVIL's ratings are respectable, but not what they once were -- after a weak (and possibly fluky) the station had an overall 3.8 share in October, according to Arbitron. It was ranked No. 8 in October -- but when it goes to its holiday format, it tends to nearly double its ratings and rule DFW's Arbitron rankings for a month or two.
It might have increased competition this year -- contemporary Christian station KLTY/94.9 FM, which has a history of going all-Christmas in December. And in October, KLTY was No. 2 in the overall ratings and nipping at the heels of longtime non-holiday No. 1 KHKS/106.1 KISS-FM.
And November's not that early, when you consider that at least one station went all-holiday in October.
Expect the holiday music to continue through midnight Christmas. At least. This was the first song (albeit in a slightly different arrangement):
