WTD 2008 Holidays - Holly

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Aaron

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Oct 10, 2008
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Airing November 12 - December 31 on Sirius channel 81, XM channel 35

Holly will broadcast contemporary holiday hits mixed with selected traditional favorites and will include Bruce Springsteen, Amy Grant, The Carpenters, Mannheim Steamroller and more. Holly will air through New Year's Eve, December 31.

* Please indicate how much you like this channel by assigning it a rating. Simply use the thread rating system found at the top of the thread and give it a vote. :)

BlobServer
 
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limegrass69

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I'm a big fan of Holly. To me, probably the best programmed holiday music channel out there. I could live without the voiced liners that were added this year...I liked it a little more when it was just music and jingles.

There is a good balance of the many different genres of holiday music. Two thumbs up.
 

Wolf

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Oct 11, 2008
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I listen to it once in a while, quite a few classic Christmas songs. But I mainly listen to when it gets closer to Xmas.
 

TacoKid

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I've listened to Holly quite a bit and at times the playlist seems larger than at other times. It almost seems as we get closer to Xmas, it's starting to tighten up a bit.

Not a bad thing just an observation.
 

limegrass69

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I've listened to Holly quite a bit and at times the playlist seems larger than at other times. It almost seems as we get closer to Xmas, it's starting to tighten up a bit.

Not a bad thing just an observation.

That's actually a good observation, and true of most holiday formats. The novelty tunes start to wear thin as the "big day" gets closer (especially if you've been with the format for a while), and there is more of a focus on the familiar stuff.

In the earlier part of the holiday season, you get a lot of drive by listening. Maybe a song or two, and then you say...eh, it's too early for Christmas music. Once you get towards Christmas, listeners spend more time with the format, and programmers tend to lean towards "White Christmas" rather than "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer".

It's a fine line between managing the repetition and turning off listeners with polarizing music. At the end of the day, people tell you that they want a lot of variety and 'new music', but they really want to have an idea of what to expect.
 

Road Hog

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Nov 9, 2008
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That's an interesting observation - I don't listen often enough to notice.

I had this channel on a bunch over the weekend - I took the kids around to some holiday events and they enjoyed it.

For my taste, they play way too much of the Manheim Steamroller and Trans Siberian Orchestra garbage that I can not stand. And there are plenty of standard songs out there that I never heard, but I did hear plenty of repeats of what they do play, which got really annoying. Bah.

I may be back on Christmas Eve, but I won't turn back to it until then - unlike the Country Christmas channel from the last couple years (which would be my go to channel after Thanksgiving).
 

Aaron

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Holly is a pretty good Christmas channel; I'd say it's a bit better than what Sirius had to offer last year. The playlist is fine. But I wish Sirius had given us Holiday Traditions as well. I like Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Nat King Cole, and the Carpenters Christmas music. That is what my parents played when I was young.

When my wife is in the car, we go back and forth between Holly and (gasp!) an FM channel that plays Christmas music 24 & 7. Between the two, we usually are happy with the song selection.
 

squigy0

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Oct 14, 2008
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Sounds: Modern pop artists doing their renditions of XMAS favorites

Positives: A chance to hear your favorite artists in a way you usually don't hear them / A chance to hear the XMAS songs you know by heart realized in a different way

Negatives: There's only so many different ways that you can do the same songs so repetition can be pretty high. Compared to previous years that this channel has been on the air, there's not a whole lot of new material on it

# of Jingle Bells: 2 out of 5

Overall: XM has been doing this channel for 3 maybe 4 years now and they've done little to nothing to freshen it up and add new material...as new as you can get with this genre that doesn't necessarily put out that many new XMAS songs anyway
 

MadisonRadio1

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Oct 17, 2008
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Sounds: Modern pop artists doing their renditions of XMAS favorites

Overall: XM has been doing this channel for 3 maybe 4 years now and they've done little to nothing to freshen it up and add new material...as new as you can get with this genre that doesn't necessarily put out that many new XMAS songs anyway

True, listening to the Contemporary Christmas channel on Slacker, I see there's a lot of new material not on Holly. It's still a fav though.

:siriusdog:
 

flap_jackson

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I prefer the Slacker holiday stations more. Although Holly has been great in years past.
 

semipenguin

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Oct 11, 2008
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This is a good channel. Songs I know by artists I listen to.

I wonder how many times that same song can be done by how many various artists?...:shifty:

I like the original Christmas songs more than I like the same old songs. At least I know the artist put some effort into the song instead of sing the same old Christmas song that has been done a thousand times before.

I give it 4 out of 5 Stars.
 

limegrass69

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The playlist has gotten a bit tighter as it got closer to Christmas. Maybe a *little* too much repetition. But I also think the Christmas tunes are starting to burn out with me.
 

MichaelC

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Oct 14, 2008
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Both this channel and Traditions were great to listen to this year. I know Holly continues through New Year's Eve, but I've reached the burnt-out point. Once the last gifts have been opened and the guests have left the house, I can't listen to another Christmas tune. That's when it's time for me to pack Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams, Frank Sinatra, etc. away for the year. But I'll be excited in mid-November next year for them to come back again.
 
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