ON THE DIAL | THE GREAT CHRISTMAS RADIO FLIP WATCH 2026
Every autumn, somewhere in America, a radio program director begins exhibiting symptoms of a condition that has baffled medical professionals for decades. The patient becomes unusually interested in sleigh bells, begins discussing Mariah Carey during otherwise normal programming meetings, and starts staring at the calendar as though Thanksgiving were an unnecessary obstacle standing between the station and a ratings bonanza. By late October, the situation becomes critical. The music director is hiding the Christmas library, the general manager is calculating holiday advertising revenue, and the morning show is preparing to explain why listeners should celebrate Christmas while their Halloween decorations are still hanging on the porch.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the annual American radio competition in which the first person to play Brenda Lee apparently wins custody of December.
And this year, I have a proposal.
Since Americans can speculate on just about everything through prediction markets like Kalshi, why don’t we turn radio’s annual Christmas music obsession into the most entertaining programming contest of the year?
Who’s going to flip first?
Who’s going to hold out until Thanksgiving?
Who’s going to panic when the competition starts playing Bing Crosby?
And which general manager is going to interrupt a perfectly good staff meeting to announce that the Christmas decorations are going up immediately because the station across town just played Jingle Bell Rock?
There is just one problem with launching our imaginary 2026 Christmas Radio Flip Sweepstakes.
SOMEBODY ALREADY WON.
And not by a few hours.
Not by a couple of days.
Not even by sneaking Christmas music onto the air the morning after Halloween.
A station in Utah decided that September was a perfectly reasonable time to begin celebrating December.
SEPTEMBER!
Apparently, Santa Claus has abandoned the North Pole and is now operating on a fiscal-year schedule.
Salt Lake City has already declared Christmas and the rest of us haven’t finished Halloween
On September 28, Capital Broadcasting’s KLO-FM began its all-Christmas programming as Christmas 103 on Coast 103.1.
That’s a full-power FM signal, not merely an FM translator, a digital-only HD subchannel or a temporary weekend feature.
And it wasn’t a one-day stunt.
The station intends to carry the holiday programming through the Christmas season before returning to its Coast 103.1 soft adult contemporary format.
According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Program Director Rob Riesen attributed the exceptionally early launch to listener demand. The station had already made national headlines in 2025 by switching to Christmas music on October 7 as part of a transition between regular formats. barely a week into fall
And here’s something particularly satisfying.
On The Dial already covered KLO’s September flip when it happened.
We published our own examination of the station’s strategy last month, long before most of the country started discussing the annual Christmas radio race. Read our original September report.
So we cannot pretend the national race remains undecided.
It doesn’t.
Under the rules of a full-power, full-season Christmas flip, KLO has an extraordinarily strong claim to the 2026 first-place position.
Which means our hypothetical prediction-market board needs a slight adjustment.
THE NATIONAL WINNER HAS ALREADY BEEN CROWNED. NOW WE’RE TAKING IMAGINARY BETS ON WHO FINISHES SECOND.
And if somebody was preparing to wager on Thanksgiving weekend, I’m sorry.
The reindeer left the starting gate before the pumpkins arrived.
Ten years of Christmas radio madness and the stations that keep coming back
Before handing out imaginary trophies, we need rules.
Otherwise, somebody will start a Christmas stream on an HD4 channel in July, connect it to a translator covering three shopping centers, and announce they’ve won the national championship.
For our purposes, an eligible station must operate a licensed full-power U.S. AM or FM signal, make a genuine continuous seasonal switch to Christmas programming, and remain an operating broadcast facility in 2026.
No translators standing alone.
No HD-only channels.
No Christmas weekends.
No single holiday song tucked between regular programming.
And no four-day Christmas stunt designed to disguise a permanent format change.
We also need to distinguish between the earliest documented station in a particular year and the earliest station whose long-term continuity has been independently verified. Those aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Historical Christmas-flip reporting is not a complete national census. A station can change programming without generating a news article, and older records often mix full-power stations with translators, HD subchannels and format stunts.
So rather than invent a perfect ten-year national winners list, here is the historical evidence we can actually substantiate.
| Year | Documented Christmas-flip history | What it tells us |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | KMJM in Cedar Rapids was already running mostly Christmas music November 1, while other Upper Midwest stations followed later. | An early AM example, but its partial morning schedule complicates eligibility. |
| 2017 | WKRU in Green Bay and WRWM in Indianapolis used Christmas programming as bridges to new formats. | Early holiday music doesn’t always mean a genuine seasonal tradition. |
| 2018 | WTRV in Grand Rapids was identified as an early non-stunting full-power Christmas conversion on October 30. | Halloween became a serious launch window. |
| 2019 | WWIZ in the Youngstown area switched October 25; Madison and Green Bay stations followed October 31. | The late-October race intensified. |
| 2020 | WWIZ launched September 25, while WMHX in Madison switched October 30. | The pandemic produced exceptionally early programming decisions. |
| 2021 | WWIZ returned October 1, although another station reportedly preceded it that day. | Early October was no longer unthinkable. |
| 2022 | The earliest reported national launch was October 28, with many stations waiting until November. | The trend toward ever-earlier flips was not continuous. |
| 2023 | WMXL in Lexington switched October 31, becoming a prominent early genuine seasonal launch. | Halloween remained a competitive starting point. |
| 2024 | WAKW in Cincinnati switched October 31, among the first documented full-power, non-stunting stations. | A repeatable early-launch strategy emerged. |
| 2025 | KLO-FM launched October 7; WAKW again switched October 31. | The distinction between transitional stunting and recurring seasonal programming became important. |
The strongest supporting historical records include NorthPine’s long-running Upper Midwest station logs, contemporary local coverage from Cincinnati, and the Salt Lake Tribune’s reporting on KLO. northpine.com+6
This is a documented historical survey, not a certified list of every national first-place winner. In particular, the 2016–2018 records and the 2022 earliest launch need more comprehensive station-by-station verification before we can award definitive national titles under our strict rules.
And another complication: some of the most aggressive historical stations have since changed formats or ownership arrangements. Their former Christmas habits don’t necessarily make them eligible contenders today.
Apparently, even Santa has trouble maintaining a ten-year radio employment history.
The stations worth watching now
WAKW Star 93.3 — Cincinnati
Strong historical contender
WAKW’s October 31 launches in both 2024 and 2025 make it one of the most interesting surviving candidates for an early genuine seasonal switch. The 2024 date was confirmed in a station-issued announcement, and Cincinnati television coverage documented its 2025 return. LINK nky+1
Mix 94.5, WMXL 94.5 FM, Lexington-Fayette, KY | Free Internet Radio | TuneIn
WMXL Mix 94.5 — Lexington
Established early-flip history
WMXL’s October 31 move in 2023 demonstrated that a mainstream adult contemporary station could embrace Halloween as its Christmas kickoff. Its exact 2026 launch date remains to be established. Wikipedia
KOST 103.5 — Los Angeles
Major-market Christmas powerhouse
KOST belongs in any serious discussion of Christmas radio because of its established seasonal identity and importance in the Los Angeles market. But a strong holiday franchise does not automatically make it the earliest station nationally.
KOSI 101.1 — Denver
Consistent seasonal franchise
KOSI has a long-established holiday identity, with past launches announced as special station events. Denver’s Christmas programming competition makes it a useful benchmark for watching whether ratings strategy or tradition determines the launch date. 9news.com
And don’t overlook Boise’s 107.9 Lite FM, which switched on November 4 in 2020, earlier than its recent tradition, or Omaha’s Star 104.5, documented among the November 1 launchers in 2025. Both demonstrate that stations outside the largest markets can be aggressive holiday programmers. boisedev.com+1
Let’s create the On The Dial Christmas Flip Challenge
Make your prediction
Just for fun. No money, no actual wager, and no affiliation with Kalshi. We’re predicting the next qualifying full-power FM or AM seasonal Christmas flip after KLO.Which station flips next?WAKW — Star 93.3 CincinnatiWMXL — Mix 94.5 LexingtonKOST 103.5 — Los AngelesKOSI 101.1 — DenverA different full-power stationPredicted date
10/31/26Local station time
Midnight
Copy my prediction to share
We should also give special recognition to the broadcasters who resist the temptation.
The stations that wait until Thanksgiving.
The stations that remember November is a perfectly good month.
The stations that allow listeners to finish their leftover Halloween candy before beginning the six-week musical journey through every recorded version of White Christmas.
And the program directors who can hear a competitor launch Christmas music without immediately calling an emergency meeting.
Those people deserve a trophy, too. Possibly one shaped like a bottle of antacid.
The ratings strategy behind all those sleigh bells
Let’s remember that Christmas music isn’t simply a sentimental programming tradition.
It’s a commercial strategy.
Holiday programming can attract listeners who don’t normally spend much time with a particular station. It can create temporary audience growth, increase familiarity and offer advertisers a seasonal environment that feels connected to shopping, family gatherings and community events.
But an early launch also involves tradeoffs.
Flip too soon and regular listeners may become frustrated.
Wait too long and a competitor may establish itself as the market’s preferred Christmas destination.
A station’s position in the Nielsen measurement calendar can also influence its decision, because programmers want the holiday audience increase to appear in the most valuable measurement periods.
And there’s another question the industry should be asking.
How much of that holiday audience stays after Christmas?
Because generating a spectacular December audience is one thing.
Turning that temporary attention into a stronger year-round station is something else entirely.
That’s where Christmas radio becomes a genuine programming challenge rather than a seasonal stunt.
A final word to America’s program directors
We are officially entering the period when every radio station with a Christmas library is potentially one programming meeting away from making a decision that will cause half its audience to celebrate and the other half to ask whether Thanksgiving has been canceled.
And somewhere, a general manager is already looking at last year’s holiday ratings.
Somewhere else, a sales manager is preparing a sponsorship package.
A production director is recording sleigh bells.
A music director is making sure nobody accidentally schedules a Metallica song between Nat King Cole and Andy Williams.
And Mariah Carey is probably warming up somewhere.
But here at On The Dial, we’re going to make this interesting.
We want to know who’s next.
We want to know when.
And we want to know which station will have the courage to announce its Christmas conversion without pretending that playing holiday music is a previously undiscovered innovation.
Because, friends, this is radio. We have been playing Christmas music for decades. At this point, the only thing left to invent is a transmitter that shoots artificial snow into the parking lot.
The national first-place title for 2026 appears to belong to KLO-FM.
But the next chapter is still unwritten.
Will Cincinnati strike on Halloween again?
Will Lexington surprise everybody?
Will a major-market powerhouse move earlier than expected?
Or will some small-market programmer with a mischievous streak turn on the Christmas library at 11:59 tonight and make every national trade publication rewrite its morning story?
PROGRAM DIRECTORS, WE ARE WATCHING.
And if you’re planning a full-power Christmas flip, tell us the date, time, call letters, market and whether the change will continue through Christmas.
We want to recognize the legitimate launches, not just the loudest promotional claims.
And to the broadcasters preparing to pull the trigger, remember one thing.
You can win the race to Christmas.
You can win the holiday ratings.
You can even win the affection of thousands of listeners who desperately need a little seasonal happiness.
But there’s one competition nobody in radio has ever managed to win.
CONVINCING THE ENTIRE AUDIENCE THAT OCTOBER IS THE PERFECT TIME TO HEAR FROSTY THE SNOWMAN.
Good luck, everybody.
Santa has already left Utah.
And apparently, he’s driving a station vehicle.
On The Dial will continue following the 2026 Christmas radio season, documenting qualifying full-power AM and FM flips, examining the programming strategies behind them, and celebrating the personalities who make holiday radio special. Our imaginary prediction challenge is editorial entertainment, not an actual wagering market.
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