What Is The Christmas Freeze, What Does It Affect, and Why?
Reposted from my Guide to Airplay blog.
I'm writing this post because I think a lot of ATRLers are confused over not only what the Christmas freeze is, but also what songs it will affect and how it will affect them. Before I delve deep into the investigation, let's remind ourselves what the freeze is (from my brief definition in the Glossary of my Guide To Airplay blog):
Christmas freeze - A period of time from late December to very early January when the vast majority of songs will stall because of the addition of holiday-themed songs to radio stations' playlists as well as the playing of stations' year-end countdowns (which cause older songs that were big hits during the year to increase and current songs to stall because they are not getting played as much). Often referred to simply as
the freeze.
Let's examine the two major factors that cause the Christmas freeze to occur.
1) Christmas music. As Christmas Day approaches, most radio stations will begin to exponentially play more Christmas and holiday-related music. On AC radio, the switch to a full-on Christmas playlist can occur as early as late November, but AC is the exception to the rule for holiday songs.
Most pop and HAC stations flip to a playlist with at least some Christmas music roughly one week before Christmas. However, this is not exact, and some stations may very well begin on December 15 or December 22.
So which songs are most adversely affected by the addition of Christmas songs to pop stations' playlists? The ones that are already getting played a lot or the ones that are just starting?
A station can only play so many songs per week, because it has to air a certain amount of commercials. So when Christmas music invades a pop radio station's playlist, it cuts into that amount. Imagine a station playing 7000 songs per week normally. At the beginning of the freeze, 6500 of those might be regular pop songs and 500 holiday songs. But how can one tell whether the Christmas music is eating into the plays of the current hits (#1-#10 on the pop radio chart) or the plays of the fastest-rising hits (usually below #15)?
Let's examine some data from the 2013 freeze. On December 15, before the start of the freeze for most pop stations, here were the highest bullets
for songs below #10:
Burn 1651
Say Something 1634
Team 1405
Story Of My Life 1126
Let Her Go 1051
And the bullets of the top 5 songs on pop radio:
The Monster 1974
Counting Stars 2184
Demons 43
Timber 1948
Wake Me Up -812
Let's see what happened to each song as the freeze took effect.
Bullets on December 24
Timber 2299
(+351)
Burn 1344
(-307) (-19%)
Team 1223
(-182) (-13%)
Say Something 1134
(-500) (-31%)
Story Of My Life 765
(-361) (-32%)
Let Her Go 729
(-322) (-31%)
Counting Stars 632
(-1552) (-71%)
The Monster 384
(-1590) (-81%)
Demons -356
(-399) (-90%)
Wake Me Up -951
(-139) (-17%)
Timber performed exceptionally well during the freeze and I consider it to be an outlier. Only the strongest pop radio hits can stay unaffected by the addition of Christmas music to playlists.
If we look at the changes in the songs' bullets, we notice that the songs that were hurt the most were the ones that were already on top and thus
closer to peaking than the rising songs (although all of the rising songs were significantly affected as well). When songs approach their peak, their bullet dwindles anyway, and the freeze
amplifies this effect by giving stations another reason to stop playing them. Another reason this happens is because the songs getting more plays on pop radio have more plays for Christmas songs to take away from them. The rising hits are less affected not only because the stations are not yet tired of playing them, but also because there are simply less plays to lose.
Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that
the songs that are affected most by the addition of Christmas and holiday-themed songs to pop radio playlists are the songs that are the highest on the pop radio chart or are very close to peaking.
It turns out that every single one of the rising hits in this investigation went on to become a top 10 pop radio hit (only Let Her Go missed the top 5, but it hit #1 on HAC radio). There are very few cases where a song completely loses momentum during the freeze and never recovers.
2) Year-end countdowns. This is the second aspect of the Christmas freeze and is the reason why it lingers into early January. During the last week of December and the first week of January, the vast majority of stations will compile year-end lists (a Top 100 Songs is common) and play them in full on air multiple times. The effects of these countdowns make the Christmas freeze less straightforward and all the more interesting.
Because these countdowns are meant to encompass the whole year, many songs that have long since had their run on pop radio often make large gains during late December and early January. The bigger the song was, the more likely it is to be included on a station's countdown (and therefore more stations will play it), and the greater its gains will likely be.
For the rising songs that usually dodge the bullet of the holiday songs, the year-end countdowns throw a wrench into the equation. Usually, these songs will stall or decrease because they are not included in the countdowns.
Let's examine some more data from the 2013 freeze. Here are the 9 fastest-rising songs on December 26, after which holiday songs are generally not played anymore:
Fastest-Rising, Dec. 26
Dark Horse 1641
XO 1376
Timber 1030
Team 911
Pompeii 838
Say Something 762
Burn 754
Young Girls 644
Story Of My Life 462
Notice how those bullets have all decreased because of the holiday songs?
Here are some bullets of some of the biggest hits of 2013, which are likely to be played on the 2013 year-end countdowns:
Older Songs, Dec. 26
Radioactive 145
When I Was Your Man 111
We Can't Stop 40
Blurred Lines 1
Mirrors -15
Thrift Shop -123
Summertime Sadness -207
Holy Grail -262
Safe And Sound -301
Hold On, We're Going Home -830
Notice how none of these bullets don't indicate anything except for minor fluctuations with an overall slightly negative trend, which is extremely common for songs that are well past their peak. (except for HOWGH, which was not well past its peak)
Here are their bullets on January 4, 2014:
Dark Horse 1556
(-85)
XO 934
(-442)
Young Girls 902
(+258)
Team 568
(-343)
Pompeii 552
(-286)
Say Something 458
(-304)
Burn 447
(-307)
Story Of My Life 344
(-118)
Timber 275
(-755)
Safe And Sound 490
(+791)
Mirrors 416
(+431)
Summertime Sadness 372
(+579)
Thrift Shop 346
(+469)
When I Was Your Man 272
(+161)
Blurred Lines 221
(+220)
Holy Grail 159
(+421)
Radioactive 150
(+5)
We Can't Stop 115
(+75)
Hold On, We're Going Home -122
(+708)
All of the songs that were big in 2013 got huge boosts! It's radio's way of paying tribute to the big hits, and unfortunately it comes at the expense of the rising songs. The songs from earlier in the year tend to steal plays from the newer, rising hits that are put on hold for two weeks.
The list of bullets on Jan. 4 actually contains two very interesting cases: Young Girls and XO. Like most Bruno Mars songs, Young Girls increased at a frenetic pace for most of its run, and the freeze didn't seem to affect it at all, but it ended up peaking just inside the top 10 for a few days. XO was one of the few songs that I actually believe the freeze had an effect on. It was a monster before the freeze, and after the freeze it never got its mojo back and its bullet steadily decreased until it peaked well outside of the top 10.
Anyways, I can confidently state that
the songs affected the most by the year-end countdowns are the rising songs and older songs that were big hits during the year but are well past their peak. The rising songs will stall and/or decrease and the older songs will surge.
Because of the combined effect of the holiday songs and the year-end countdowns,
most songs on the pop radio chart can expect to suffer from the freeze. It is very rare that a song is affected by both (the song would probably have to be a song that was surging in late Nov./early Dec. but had since slowed down). The two types of songs that benefit from the freeze are holiday songs and old songs that were big earlier in the year.
I hope you learned some stuff from this post and that you can apply it for 2014! The freeze is coming
But I do like the album. The singles from it are the standout tracks IMO.
love her 
