Listeners were caught off guard Friday when Youngstown’s Z104 flipped from oldies music to holiday tunes.

And now we’re learning more about why the station made the change.

It turns out, Z104 wanted to help boost the holiday spirit in the Mahoning Valley this year, according to station market manager Bill Kelly.

“With everything going on in the Mahoning Valley and in the world these days, we felt we could all use a little more Christmas right now,” Kelly said. “Playing Christmas music this early in the season will get our listeners in the Valley into the holiday spirit even more this year.”

Science proves that listening to happy, upbeat music invokes happy memories.

“If you listen to happy or peaceful music, you recall positive memories, whereas if you listen to emotionally scary or sad music, you recall largely negative memories from your past,” according to study research.

And, we all know Christmas music is happy and upbeat!

So Z104 knows what it’s doing.

By the way, stations that flip to holiday tunes see big rewards in ratings.

In Pittsburgh, historically, 94.5 3WS and Wish 99.7 flip to Christmas music – usually on Light Up Night (Nov. 22 this year), but have flipped earlier in the week some years.

Note: I expect one or both stations to flip earlier than Nov. 22 since Thanksgiving is very late this year.

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