MUMBAI: Michael Bublé's ‘It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas' , ' Silent Night', Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ will bring smiles on faces during Christmas. It is the time of the year when every content caterer is in holiday spirits, lets it be television, digital or the radio industry.

According to new data released by Neilson, there are now at least 168 radio stations that are playing only full-time Christmas music. The radio stations have ditched the typical format to play Christmas songs for a while.

The stations that chose to switch over aren’t restricted to one area of the country, or a particular demographic either. And this depicts how powerful holiday and festive music is. The major markets are KOST in Los Angeles, WLYF in Miami, FL, and WLIT in Chicago, as well as in less-populated regions that have made the commitment to all holiday music during the fag end of 2015.

Also, there are a hundred-plus stations that convert to spinning only yuletide classics and plenty of them to get the audience in festive and holiday spirit. There are many adult contemporary stations which add Christmas tunes to their playlists.

According to Neilson, while new Christmas music is created by many artists, the most popular songs are still those from days gone by. New entrants come up every year, but usually radio stations go for the songs which have been popular all these years. The favourite artists have been from the 1940’s, 1950’s, and 1960’s, which are also the decades which produced some of the most beloved Christmas songs of all time.

As those tracks are highly favoured above new cuts, they result in getting a high level of attention, and are repeatedly played a number of times. Due to this perspective, new smash hits of an artist like Taylor Swift or an Adele do not receive many plays as compared to Bing Crosby, Burl Ives or Brenda Lee classics.

Interestingly, the same holiday music drops drastically after Christmas. On 26th December, four out of five stations will probably switch to normal programming. Holiday music seems very much loved and enjoyed, but once the festival and day get over, people don’t want to listen to it until the same time next year.