Christmas Music Fact Check!

We know most radio stations tend to only favor traditional Christmas Carrols and/or nostalgic Christmas classics in their playlist. This week, we’re taking a look at Christmas data. I pulled the Chartmetric Track Scores for the Top 150 Christmas/Holiday songs AND the total streaming reports from Music Connect for the top Holiday/Christmas songs. You’ll see the total streaming number column on the report in addition to the weekly number. Every Christmas song was new once so it might be good to pay attention to the Christmas songs that come out this year that have HUGE streaming numbers. Music grows quickly on social media and streaming and if you find a place for the news and most significant Christmas songs in your playlist (based on the behavior online) while your competition misses them, it can give you an advantage and a relevancy.

Here’s another thought that might be worth something…what’s nostalgic for people 55+ might not be nostalgic for 40 year olds…or 30 year olds. Are you playing music from the Home Alone soundtrack? What about songs from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation? Your audience (the sweet spot…35-45) grew up with those movies. We also grew up with Elf and the incredible songs from that film! If you’re 55+, you grew up with some songs we all share but you could be leaving some great opportunities on the table if you aren’t looking to the movie soundtracks your millennial audience grew up listening to in their favorite films.