Radio Christmas Music

In the Minneapolis area, two radio stations claim to be the Twin Cities Official Christmas Station, KOOL 108 and WLTE 102.9. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we expect them to play only Christmas and Winter themed songs.

At work, we always have 107.9 playing because the format is friendly to the largest group of people. However, on the first workday of November, we heard a series of Christmas tunes. A couple of us wrote into their programming department to complain about the format change coming too early. Then we switched to 102.9 for regular music.

Later that afternoon, we each received a form email from KOOL thanking us for our note about the Christmas music:

"It was simply our attempt to spread some good cheer during a time that it seems so very needed. We appreciate your feelings and your passion for our radio station.

"As of 2:10 this afternoon we've made our planned switch back to KOOL 108's regular format. We will be the Twin Cities' official Christmas station again this year, but it will be later this month before we make the switch in earnest.

"Thank you again for your note and I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday season.

"If the spirit of the music earlier today put you in a giving mood, please consider joining the KOOL 108 Red Kettle Team. It's a great way to assist the Salvation Army and you could end up winning tickets to see Wicked at Orpheum Theater on November 16th."

Can you believe they used our letters as a method of promoting their Red Kettle Team?

We stayed on WLTE until they switched to 100% Christmas music a week before Thanksgiving. We spun the radio dial looking for KS95 but stopped on Mix 94.9 instead. Based in St. Cloud, they play the same music format as KS95. After Thanksgiving, they began incorporating occasional Christmas tunes into their programming. This balance worked for the first week of December, but we may change back to 107.9 as Christmas approaches.