As a tumultuous year nears closure, consumers are reaching for warm and familiar holiday content to watch and listen to.
Radio stations around the United States typically will switch temporarily to Christmas tunes after Thanksgiving. NPR reports that some stations made the switch even earlier this year. Majic 95.1 kicked off holiday programming in July this year as radio ratings took a dive during the earlier phase of the pandemic.
Music streaming services offer a multitude of holiday entertainment options. Take SiriusXM and Pandora as an example. SiriusXM added a new holiday music channel, Jolly Christmas, on their app. This joins their lineup of 17 ad-free music channels celebrating the holiday season. Everything from traditional holiday songs, classic Christmas carols, pop, country, soul and classical.
SiriusXM will also weave the holidays into their existing lineup. Their U2 X-Radio station will offer holiday tunes hand-selected by the band’s bass player Adam Clayton. Over on LL Cool J’s Rock the Bells Radio, subscribers will find exclusive holiday mixes from hip hop DJs.
On December 15, Billboard reported that Mariah Carey returned to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart with her classic “All I Want For Christmas Is You”. This feat occurred last year as well.
Billboard’s Gab Ginsberg said “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is a modern Christmas classic, and it’s impossible not to smile whenever and wherever I hear it playing. Like decorating the tree, hanging up the stockings and getting sick off Baileys, “All I Want” hitting No. 1 is now holiday tradition.”
Holiday films continue to dominate our televisions. Looking at data from the first week of December 2020, Elf was the most popular holiday film searched for on their video platform.
Die Hard was the seventh most searched for holiday movie. Has Roku settled the debate about whether Die Hard is holiday movie?
