A friend of mine is a Christmas song plugger and he's related some negative trends in the Christmas song business. This resistance to new material is unfortunate, since the "Christmas-only" programming that is done on some stations is pretty abysmal, as it seems they seem to have a total of 5 songs in rotation! Honestly, if I hear wham!'s "Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart", I'll kill myself!

Here's a quote from my friend:

Placing Christmas material is extremely difficult. First of all, record labels prefer public domain covers so they don't have to pay royalties on those tunes. Secondly, it's almost a given than at least half or more of the album be recognizable "standards." Thirdly, if the artist or group writes, they'll fill up most if not all of the remaining slots. "Outside" material comes in a distant fourth. Too bad. It seems the Christmas business came to a halt after the '60s. And no, I don't like that "Christmas Shoes" song! Why does it seem like so many of the new songs that do get recorded are bummer songs? Why isn't anybody writing about having a Holly Jolly Christmas any more?

Also, as more and more labels merge, contacts I've schmoozed for 10-15 years are fired or retired. Sync fees are dropping like rocks. Five years ago, I used to get $3,500 to $6,000 for a TV sync license. Last year the same studio offered $700. A week later, ESPN offered $150 total! A week after than, a soap opera told me "there is no sync fee, just your ASCAP or BMI. Take it or leave it." I was recently told by one of the major players in the premium market, "Because of free internet download sites like Napster, the public no longer sees the value in getting a CD with a product purchase since they can now download files all day long for free.

Christmas is a tough busineess!

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