For the first time since we began tracking in 2010, it took until Halloween for the first station to make the move to all-Christmas music for the holiday season.
iHeartMedia AC “Mix 94.5” WMXL Lexington KY made the move just before midnight to its seasonal “MixMas” identity with Willie Nelson’s “Frosty The Snowman” kicking off the festivities.
Other stations will quickly follow suit. Some are already promoting moves to be made on Wednesday, November 1 including Townsquare Media’s “The New 96.1” WTSS Buffalo. Another may even launch today as Salem Media’s KKFS Sacramento is teasing a move at “its sister station in Portland” for today.
WMXL’s Halloween move marks the latest in our fourteen years of tracking that a station became the first in the country to go all-Christmas supplanting the 2018 move of WTRV Grand Rapids on October 30. The earliest logged shift was iHeartMedia debuting “Santa 100.9” K265CA Albuquerque on August 31, 2013 as a stunt leading into a post-Christmas format change.