Ho! Ho! Ho! from R&R:

-------------------Christmas Rises Again In Saskatoon--------------------
By Keith Berman

Harvard Broadcasting got the thumbs-up from the CRTC to hoist the Giant Transmitter Lever to "ON" at brand new station CFWD/Saskatoon, and today at 4 p.m., the station launched as "96.3 Santa FM" under the flag of PD Chris Myers. Naturally, Santa FM is playing all of your favorite Christmas tunes, no matter the genre -- country, hip-hop, rock ... yup, we're completely suckered in by this, there's no chance this is a stunt that will give way to another format soon. Uh huh. [CFWD is 96kw]

"From Bing to Sting, we have all the best holiday hits!" says the breathless press release. 96.3 Santa FM is capturing the excitement of Christmas each and every day with tidings of hope, love and happiness."

Wikipedia reports the on air slogan as: Santa FM - Saskatoons Number 1 Christmas Music Station.

Question: Is there a big enough audience to support a Christmas format out of season?

...until next week!

This from All Access:

---------------------CFWD Becomes 96.3 Santa FM----------------------

New sign-on CFWD/SASKATOON has stunned the market and is now 96.3 SANTA FM, as of 4p playing all the Christmas Hits -- from BING to STING, 24/7. SANTAS are on every street corner, as you read this, spreading the cheer.

Under PD CHRIS MYERS, the station promises, "96.3 SANTA FM is capturing the excitement of Christmas each and every day with tidings of hope, love and happiness. You’ll enjoy the widest variety of music genres ever assembled under one format. Country singers, rockers, rappers, even the stars of yesteryear ... you’ll hear them right here on 96.3 SANTA FM. We'll be spreading holiday cheer all over SASKATOON and on line at:

http://www.santaradio.com/hohoho/

Now can we say that we have 'seen and heard it all" ?

Yeah, Craig:

I'm guessing it's the Canadian's humor of stunting. I could have sworn I read something from the CRTC last April or May when I was living in Vancouver about them getting a signal for a new CHR up there in Saskatoon.

I thought originally they were granted a license by the CRTC to start broadcasting before summer of 2007.

I email back and forth with a few PD's and Canadian country artists I know up there. We always chuckle on stories about jocks from the US getting all excited to work in Canada, and then learning the hard way about the 33% rule and the lower pay scale.

The CRTC is pretty strict about what is granted, and what is done. I'm betting that they are within grounds as long as they stick to the 33% and keep the open image of "all that's happenin'" in Christmas.

"And for knowing the Christmas 5 at 5, the 5th caller scores an all expense paid trip to Inuit (that's the new territory up there), plus a truckload of Kokanee, 'eh!"

Cheers!

Kahtik: Here's the background of CFWD according to Wikipedia:

CFWD is a new radio station in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Licensed to Harvard Broadcasting on May 28, 2007 [1], the station was originally scheduled to launch on 92.3 FM. However, it applied for a change of frequency to 96.3 FM, citing the potential for third-adjacent interference to CKBL [2] [3].

The station is licensed to broadcast a contemporary hit radio format.

On April 9, 2008, the station began broadcasting Christmas music and running station IDs calling themselves "Santa FM - Saskatoon's #1 Christmas music station" in what is presumed to be a publicity campaign leading up to the actual launch of the station.

Baa Humbug! It's over and I'm bummed! This from The Star Phoenix:

-------------------Radio Station Takes Down The Tree-------------------

Saskatonians will not have access to an all-Christmas radio station on their FM dials after all. A hoard of people in Santa suits took to the city's streets Thursday promoting Santa FM 96.3, a station playing everything from "Bing to Sting." The station's website posted this message Friday afternoon: "You told us that you really really didn't want a Christmas station and we listened. To be quite honest, we probably would have gone crazy listening to Rudolph one more time."

Promptly at 3 p.m. the website relaunched and mistletoe and chestnuts roasting made way for Timbaland and Hedley. The holiday tunes, all part of a marketing scheme, have ceased and a new station, Wired 96.3, has emerged. Carley Caverly, the station's general manager, said the Santa prank was all in good fun. "Radio is fun. It's supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be happy. Our station's values are we're young, fresh and fun," she said. "We could have gone and bought billboards or done the traditional (but) it wouldn't have hit our target."

The station, at 96.3 on the FM dial or online at www.wired963.com, promises to play all of today's hottest music when it is still new, including artists such as Kanye West, T-Pain, Linkin Park and Chris Brown. The lineup of on-air hosts -- three women and four men -- have names like Trouble, DJ T Bone, Blake and Bender. Wired 96.3 targets a radio demographic that is underserved in Saskatoon, Caverly says. She said the response to new station's format has been positive so far, aside from a few joke callers who wailed, "Bring back Santa."

Great to see an ownership group still having fun and allowing staff to just go with it! Heck, if we went that serious in the US now, we would probably have someone from a "Santa" group upset and immediately on the horn to the FCC.

That's what I love about my fellow Canadian brothers, they do love to life to the fun side of things, and just take out all the anger during the hockey games 'eh?!

A crack of the mic to Wired for that exposure.