In 2025, the station list for Liveline tripled. That means not only that we’re fortunate to be reaching more people, but that the requests truly tell a story now. We were already averaging about 400 requests a week. That has since grown to 500-700 in an era when “listeners don’t call radio stations” so few stations still ask them to.
This data is crucial for us and so many other programmers who actually value the input of real nighttime radio listeners, what they like, why they like it, and more importantly, what they don’t call for. Our requests do the hard work of deciphering between viral TikTok sounds, streaming hits, and songs people actually want to hear in their entirety on the radio
A great example of this is Spotify’s current Top 50, more dominated by Christmas songs than any other year. As of December 10, only twelve non-holiday songs are charting. While that’s typical as Christmas approaches, as Matt Bailey noted last week, it’s a lot for this early. While Liveline’s callers often align with streaming—certainly more than with the airplay chart—that’s not yet the case here.
At Liveline, there’s only one Christmas song, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas,” of course, in the top 20. In fact, with Tame Impala’s “Dracula” in the top 10 and Lady Gaga’s “The Dead Dance” in the top 20, there are technically more songs associated with Halloween! The top 5 still includes both Olivia Dean songs, including “Man I Need,” now at its ninth week at #1 and “So Easy (To Fall in Love),” finally starting to gain radio play after weeks of being spotlighted here.
Here are the other songs we’ve received Christmas requests for, so far.
- Eartha Kitt, “Santa Baby” (1953)
- Bobby Helms, “Jingle Bell Rock” (1957)
- Brenda Lee, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” (1958)
- Wham!, “Last Christmas” (1984)
- Adam Sandler, “The Chanukah Song” (1995)
- NSYNC, “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” (2000)
- Justin Bieber, “Mistletoe” (2011)
- Kelly Clarkson, “Underneath the Tree” (2013)
- Ariana Grande, “Santa Tell Me” (2014)
- Ed Sheeran & Elton John, “Merry Christmas” (2021)
It seems like very few people are turning to Top 40 radio for Christmas music, especially since you can stream it unlimitedly online, while AC stations are playing it 24/7. Not everyone likes holiday music, and some listeners are likely choosing CHR to escape it, as our requests show thus far. When they ask for holiday music, they want old favorites, but the songs they’re calling for include titles as recent as 2021 and do include some of the holiday songs from artists like Ariana and Justin that AC holiday formats don’t play much.
One other non-holiday song of note. With the return of Stranger Things, “End of Beginning” by Djo (aka the show’s Joe Keery) is again getting requests on Liveline and is currently #26 on Spotify (making it the #7 non-holiday title). It’s a song that always demonstrated tons of listener passion for us, despite being only top 15 at Top 40 and Hot AC.
With so little new product now, “End of Beginning” is worth considering for a few weeks, both for culture relevance and because it’s just a great song that isn’t heavily burned. It’s ultra familiar and gives the Alternative vibe our format desperately needs right now. (A few rhythmic songs would be good too, since there are literally none except for a couple recurrents.)
Next week: our extensive year-end recap of the biggest music, memories and moments of 2025.
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