Sounds like Christmas coming to WLIT Thursday

Edison the Reindeer

Edison the Reindeer

Ready or not, Chicago, it’s time for Christmas on the radio again.

At 4:05 p.m. Thursday, WLIT FM 93.9, the iHeartMedia adult contemporary station, will switch to holiday music around the clock for the 16th consecutive year. Edison the Reindeer returns as mascot of “Chicago’s Christmas Station.”

“For the past few weeks, we’ve asked listeners to go to 939myfm.com and take a guess at when they think we’re flipping to Christmas music,” Mick Lee, program director and afternoon host of 93.9 MYfm, said in a statement. “With thousands of submissions, it’s clear that Chicagoland is ready for the holidays.”

New to the festivities this year is a tie-in with Skydeck Chicago at Willis Tower. At 5 p.m. Thursday, 93.9 MYfm morning host Kristina Kage (accompanied by Edison the Reindeer) will flip the lights there to Christmas colors.

Last year the switch to Christmas music came on November 12. As usual, ratings skyrocketed: By mid-December listenership peaked with a cumulative weekly audience of 4,057,700 and an average quarter-hour share of 16.7 percent — nearly triple the next closest competitor.

How does that compare with the station’s normal format? In the latest Nielsen Audio survey, WLIT ranked 11th with a 3.1 share and 1,737,200 weekly cume.