Update 6:10pm: After 12 hours of stunting with Christmas music, “103.7 Play” returned to its regular format. Just like any good stunt WURV knew to hold on just long enough before wearing out its welcome.
103.7 Play's Christmas Surprise…
You guys are the BEST!!! Thank you for letting us "PLAY" with you today! We hope you had a great time getting your fa la la and holly jolly jingles on 🙂 To everyone who knew we were having fun, you are smart (Christmas) cookies – and, well, there are a few of you that belong on Santa's naughty list for those potty mouths! We love you RVA and will always maintain that 103.7 Play listeners are the best in the city! :)PS: If you still want Christmas music, don't forget next Friday 10/16 is our annual Play For Pink Radiothon to benefit Central Virginia Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Make a donation to help us fight breast cancer and you can pick any song for us to play on the radio… yes, even Christmas music! 😉
Posted by 103.7 Play on Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Original Report 10/7 5:20pm: SummitMedia Hot AC “103.7 Play” WURV Richmond, VA is stunting with what it is calling “Inappropriately Early Christmas Music”.
Beginning at 6am this morning, WURV switched to the holiday music, It joined sister 100.1 W261BX Birmingham as early adopters of the holiday format. Stating that with 79 days to go until Christmas, Richmond needed an early holiday spirit.
We don’t believe that WURV will continue on with the music until Christmas. In recent years SummitMedia has utilized sister Soft AC “Easy 100.9” WHTI Lakeside as its home for Christmas music. And with sister CHR “Hot 106.1” W291CL/WURV-HD2 registering a 0.0 share in the Summer 2015 Nielsen Audio ratings, we wouldn’t be surprised to see this as the start of some changes to the SummitMedia Richmond cluster.
Regardless the move has worked as the stunting has gained attention from the local press which is the purpose of all good stunts.
If this had been in late October (given that WEZW-93.1 in Southeastern New Jersey has gone all-Christmas in late October the last couple of years) or later, I would have said yes, WURV-103.7 Richmond would have stayed all-Christmas through December 25th.
But this is a stunt that will likely be over within a few days (maybe after the Columbus Day weekend?).
Point of this whole stunt was…? Ratings hike? Nope, 12 hours wouldn’t change anything. Introducing a new station? No where to be found. Publicity stunt? Yes they got that, but people aren’t going to all the sudden listen to their station, if they aren’t going to continue their Christmas music.
Publicity. It’s the middle of the Fall book. Generate attention and hope people stick around tomorrow.
Looks liked SummitMedia has also stopped geofencing WURV. However WHTI is still not available outside of VA.