It's Christmastime on the air

If you like holiday music or modern country music, you may be thrilled by some of the Salt Lake area radio dial changes made in the past two weeks.

First, as expected, around-the-clock Christmas music began Nov. 1 on two stations, KOSY (FM-106.5) and KOAY (FM-97.5). In recent years, Salt Lake has had some of the earliest all-holiday music stations in the nation.

However, given the TV holiday commercials that began even sooner — several weeks before Halloween — radio's entrance into the Christmas world doesn't seem as out of place this year.

Expect other stations, like KSFI ("FM-100"), to also play holiday music soon.

KXRV, "The River," (FM-105.7) could never seem to find its market niche. It seemed underfunded and underpromoted, too. As of Nov. 1, "The River" stopped flowing, replaced by "My Country 105.7."

Patterned after sister station KJMY ("My 99.5"), "Country" is designed for people who love the music and hate the clutter. It has no DJs and focuses on music, in part as requested by listeners. It plays a mix of the best new country songs and announces the title and artist after each song is played.

Listeners can go online to www.mycountry1057.com to see how they can be a part of the input process for the station's musical selections.

The downside of the demise of "The River" is its personalities. Have they been let go? Are morning DJs Frank Bell and Erin Brady gone? I haven't heard them on the new FM-105.7, and a spokesman for KXRV said he "didn't know" in an e-mail response to our question about their whereabouts.

Finally, the old-style country music on KKAT (AM-860) disappeared just before Halloween and has been replaced by Scott Shannon's "True Oldies Channel," syndicated rock 'n' roll music.

Eric Hauenstein, general manager of KKAT, describes the music as "more pure oldies from the '60s and '70s than any other station in Utah."

The station is still using its "Wolf" nickname. Also, the oldies music isn't a 24-hour format. AM-860 still airs NASCAR radio some evenings and will probably still carry Utah Grizzlies games.

The downside to the AM-860 change is that if you are a fan of traditional country music, there's one less place to hear it now.