Radio head: Smooth Christmas Radio

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas," a jingle informed us on a national station that launched on Tuesday. It wasn't, in truth, on a mild, sunny November morning, but on Smooth Christmas Radio every day is emphatically, determinedly festive. The station – an off-shoot of GMG-owned Smooth Radio – plays back to back Christmas music (classics, covers, festive chart toppers) with no adverts and, currently, no presenters. It's a Christmas jukebox, essentially, though presenters are promised nearer to the big day, and Father Christmas will be on-air on Christmas Eve. It's a weird listen this far from the festivities. "We're all about the Christmas trees and the jingle bells," another jingle booms, the morning after Halloween. Humming along to Let It Snow , Blue Christmas , Last Christmas , and Fairytale of New York is odd enough with seven weeks to go. But then this queasy thought hits you: imagine how many more times these tracks will be played between now and the station going off-air on 27 December. Nobody – apart from Christmas fanatics, already well served by dozens of festive stations online, many of which are year-round operations – really wants wall-to-wall Christmas music for weeks on end. So why launch a specialist festive station? Listen for a bit and it soon becomes clear: between Johnny Matthis and Cliff Richard tracks, there are repeated nudges to try Smooth Radio, with many mentions of household name presenters such as Simon Bates and Kid Jensen. One jingle makes this explicit: "When all these Christmas songs get a bit much, join us over on Smooth." It doesn't take long for the music to get a bit much, frankly, but you can imagine listeners dipping into the festive station as the season approaches and maybe toddling over to Smooth to give it a listen. For now, it all sounds rather hollow and silly, but next month, once the tree's up, it could be fun. With a very large sherry. For a little while.