AC WRCH (Lite 100.5) Hartford, Conn., has the sort of numbers throughout the year that other stations don’t see until holiday time. WRCH doesn’t break the Mainstream AC template, but they make it bulge at its seams, including a number of the older/softer titles that other stations had off-loaded, at least until the Soft AC Breeze stations showed up. Lite self-reports to Nielsen as “Adult Hits,” like a Bob- or Jack-FM, and their variety has always made it a credible claim.
Hartford has been interesting that way over the years. In its Oldies tenure, WDRC-FM was fearlessly deeper and older than comparable stations. Hip-Hop/R&B WZMX (Hot 93.7) has been one of Hip-Hop/R&B’s most musically forward stations. In November, it was up 7.2-7.8, even during a disastrous fall for the format. Nearby Top 40 WKCI (KC101) New Haven, Conn., has gotten attention this year for its throwback weekends, but also been early on some new titles; (sister WKSS [Kiss 95.7] also leaned newer for years but seems to have tightened).
Hartford is nominally a radio market with a relatively small number of its own stations. Like most Southern New England markets, it is also a place where you can hear most stations from at least four other nearby markets. So it’s not by default when Hartford stations are successful on their own terms.
I recently ended up chatting with another AC programmer about WRCH’s holiday list. A single hour’s monitor always has plenty of hits. This one has “White Christmas,” “Last Christmas,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and “The Christmas Song.” But it also starts with a Gene Autry song that isn’t “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” or “Here Comes Santa Claus.”
WRCH’s most-played holiday titles also include Peggy Lee, “I Like A Sleigh Ride”; James Taylor, “Who Comes This Night”; and James Brickman, “The Gift.” They are one of only two U.S. stations playing “One More Sleep” by Leona Lewis, a commonly heard title in the U.K., in significant rotation, but the other is nearby WMAS Springfield, Mass. And looking through monitors, I found a gem I had never heard before, “Snow Falls” by Carried Away.
A month ago, I published Ross On Radio readers’ choices for a more eclectic Christmas mix than the one typically offered by Mainstream AC. But regular readers know that I’ve always been an advocate of “hits plus”—the hits and just a few calculated surprises. So I wanted to share WRCH with readers before Christmas music programming ended. (They’ll be starting 36 hours commercial-free at Noon on Christmas Eve.)
Here’s Lite 100.5 on Dec. 22 at 4 p.m.:
- Gene Autry, “He’ll Be Coming Down the Chimney”
- David Foster, “Carol of the Bells”
- Temptations, “Silent Night”
- Vince Guaraldi, “Christmas Time Is Here”
- Stevie Wonder, “What Christmas Means To Me”
- Bruce Springsteen, “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”
- Brenda Lee, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”
- New Christy Minstrels, “We Need A Little Christmas”
- Wham!, “Last Christmas”
- Bing Crosby, “White Christmas”
- Boney M, “Mary’s Boy Child”
- Andy Williams, “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”
- Jackson 5, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”
- 98 Degrees, “This Gift”
- Nat King Cole, “The Christmas Song”