{"id":1216,"date":"2013-11-15T10:57:32","date_gmt":"2013-11-15T16:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=1216"},"modified":"2013-11-15T16:11:17","modified_gmt":"2013-11-15T22:11:17","slug":"ready-or-not-its-chistmastime-on-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2013\/11\/15\/ready-or-not-its-chistmastime-on-radio\/","title":{"rendered":"Ready or not, it\u2019s Christmas on radio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Christmas-music.png\"><a href=\"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2013\/11\/15\/ready-or-not-its-chistmastime-on-radio\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1218\" alt=\"Christmas music\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Christmas-music.png\" width=\"592\" height=\"279\" \/><\/a><\/a>Thanksgivukkah is still two weeks away, but it\u2019s already beginning to sound a lot like Christmas on the radio.<\/p>\n<p>WLIT FM 93.9 began airing its annual around-the-clock Christmas music programming at 4:50 p.m. Thursday. The kickoff tune was indeed Perry Como\u2019s 1951 version of \"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.\u201d<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re not calling it \u201cThe Holiday Lite\u201d anymore since the Clear Channel adult contemporary station <a href=\"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/2013\/06\/17\/lites-out-clear-channel-launches-93-9-my-fm\/\" target=\"_blank\">dropped the station\u2019s branding<\/a> as Lite FM last June and switched to 93.9 MY FM. But they\u2019re still using Edison the Reindeer as their mascot.<\/p>\n<p>For the first couple of years \u2014 before \u201choliday creep\u201d set in \u2014 Lite FM didn\u2019t start its all-Christmas music format until the day after Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1217\" style=\"width: 230px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Mick-Lee.png\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1217\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1217\" alt=\"Mick Lee\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Mick-Lee.png\" width=\"220\" height=\"292\" srcset=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Mick-Lee.png 220w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Mick-Lee-150x199.png 150w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Mick-Lee-200x265.png 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 220px) 100vw, 220px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1217\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mick Lee<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Things began to get out of hand in 2003 when the former WNND FM 100.3 went all-Christmas on Nov. 18 \u2014 nine days before Thanksgiving. Not to be out-cheered by its rival, WLIT flipped the same day. In what may or may not have been an intentional play on words, John Gehron, then-market manager for Clear Channel Chicago, declared: \u201cWe\u2019re not taking it lightly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since then, WLIT has started making with the ho, ho, ho as early as Nov. 2, joining other stations around the country in capitalizing on a guaranteed ratings booster. In recent years, it\u2019s turned the launch date into a public guessing game \u2014 and an online contest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOver the past few weeks, we\u2019ve asked listeners to head to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.939myfm.com\/main.html\" target=\"_blank\">www.939myfm.com<\/a> to take a guess at when they think we\u2019re flipping to Christmas music,\u201d program director and afternoon host Mick Lee said in a statement Thursday. \u201cWith thousands of submissions, it\u2019s clear that Chicagoland is ready for the holidays! Beginning today, we\u2019re thrilled to announce the tradition of Christmas music continues . . . \u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanksgivukkah is still two weeks away, but it\u2019s already beginning to sound a lot like Christmas on the radio. WLIT FM 93.9 began airing its annual around-the-clock Christmas music programming at 4:50 p.m. Thursday. The kickoff tune was indeed Perry Como\u2019s 1951 version of \"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1216"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1231,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions\/1231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}