Genesis Communications, which shook up the market a bit by buying a Spanish-language AM station and perching its right-wing talk station on the more powerful signal, has turned WHBO-AM into an all-Xmas format for the rest of the year (WHBO's old logo to the left).

It's a typical radio industry move to adopt an odd format for a few weeks before changing the format on a station to shake off the old listeners and garner a little media attention.

So, as Bay News9 prepares to fire up the televised yule log once again, WHBO is offering the audio equivalent after moving its ESPN Radio station to the old frequency of WWBA.

Since I'm off work for most of this week, I won't be able to offer much reporting on this, but here's the press release:

"WHBO 1470 LAUNCHES FIRST ALL CHRISTMAS FORMAT IN TAMPA"

"GENESIS COMMUNICATIONS TODAY LAUNCHED CHRISTMAS 1470, THE FIRST ALL CHRISTMAS MUSIC RADIO STATION IN TAMPA BAY. A NEW FORMAT WILL BE ANNOUNCED FOR THE STATION AFTER THE FIRST OF THE YEAR.

"GENESIS COMMUNICATIONS OWNS AND OPERATES WHBO 1470 AND WWBA 1040 AND WMGG 820 (PENDING FCC APPROVAL) IN THE TAMPA BAY MARKET, WHOO 1080, WAMT 1190 IN THE ORLANDO MARKET AND WIXC IN THE MELBOURNE MARKET."

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