Radio Chills Over ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’

• At last… our long, national media-produced Christmas song nightmare is over — Bonneville AC 96.5 KOIT/San Francisco has become the latest station to return the much maligned holiday classic, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” to its Christmas music playlist! After hearing from thousands of Bay Area listeners via polling, phone calls, emails and social media, KOIT has concluded that the vast majority of its listeners consider the song to be a valuable part of their holiday tradition, and they still want to hear it on the radio.

By now you know the backstory — a blog post by Glenn Anderson of WDOK/Cleveland taking exception to what was perceived as an inappropriate subtext in the 1944 Christmas classic written by Frank Loesser generated some listeners complaints, causing several radio prominent radio stations — including KOIT — to stop playing the song. That decision to hit “pause” on the normally beloved 75-year-old holiday mainstay received extensive local and national coverage, including features on CBS News and CNN.

“KOIT’s listeners have spoken, and the overwhelming message is they do want to hear ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ on our station, as they have throughout the years,” said KOIT PD Brian Figula. “More than seven out of every ten listeners who responded said although some lyrics of the song may reflect a different era and a different sensibility than today, still they love the tradition and history of the song, and want to hear it as part of their holiday season. At KOIT, we always listen carefully when our listeners take time to comment. In this case, it was very obvious what they wanted us to do.”

• A similar scenario recently played out in Denver, where Entercom AC KOSI/Denver had also pulled the song before putting the matter in the hands of its listeners. As PD Jim Lawson told us, “Respondents voted 95% in favor of us keeping the song as part of KOSI 101.1’s tradition of playing all of your holiday favorites. While we are sensitive to those who may be upset by some of the lyrics, the majority of our listeners have expressed their interpretation of the song to be non-offensive.”