The unofficial start of summer is historically one of the bigger format change events in the radio calendar along with July 4, Labor Day, and Post-Christmas.
Of the four Memorial Day Weekend has begun to lose its importance the past few years for multiple reasons. The end of the CHR building boom of the early 2010s played a huge part as many Top 40’s would debut to potentially become the soundtrack of the upcoming summer. Also playing a part is that of the four holidays, Memorial Day weekend is the only one to take place within a ratings period as the Spring book runs until mid-June, whereas July 4 weekend follows and Labor Day and Christmas are on opposite ends of the Fall book.
And that’s without even getting into the obvious pandemic related economic fallout that has cut operating budgets, shut down research, and left many operators unwilling to take risk even in losing ad revenue from under-performing stations.
There will be a few flips in the next 48 hours, but nowhere near what we’d expect in a normal year.
Among the domains, iHeartMedia looks to be bringing Bloomberg programming to FM somewhere.