How Christmas Music Became Big Business w/ Guy Moot & Carianne Marshall

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1:35Not bad for a genre that comes and goes from the Billboard charts after about a month of listening. This unique, seasonal genre of music has become big business, especially in our era of music streaming, where you don't even have to buy a holiday hit in order to play it at your next Christmas party. To dive into the business of Christmas music, I'm joined today by two of the most powerful executives in music publishing, Guy Moot and Carrie Ann Marshall, the CEO and COO of Warner Chapel.

2:04Welcome back to On the Record, a music business podcast from Billboard and Sick Bird Productions. As always, I'm your host, Kristen Robinson, and today on the show, we are diving into the business behind your favorite holiday hits. We all know the classics, your jingle bell rocks, your rocking around the Christmas trees, All I Want for Christmas is You. These songs are not just culturally relevant, but they make a ton of money in royalties year after year after year, even though most of them came out decades ago. For many, it's seen as the ultimate evergreen hit, pun intended. But it's not easy to mint a new holiday hit in 2025.

2:40According to Luminate, much of the royalties from Christmas music go to a relatively small number of hit songs. The money and the listenership is more concentrated with the top Christmas hits than it typically is in other genres. For example, in 2023, the top 50 holiday recordings accounted for 35 % of all holiday streaming. Compare that to the top 50 pop tracks, which only accounted for 12 % of all pop streaming. So it's clear that basically Christmas music is go big or go home. You're either making an extremely popular Christmas album like Michael Buble's, or you're making an album that dissolves into the vast landscape of other holiday music.

3:18But of course, the small chance at creating the next Christmas classic is still enough to get artists working on new material every single season. And before we bring in Guy and Carrie Ann to break it all down for us, I just want to warn our regular viewers of On The Record that we are going to be taking a slight break during the holidays. But we'll be back in mid-January to give you even more great interviews and insights about all things music industry. And I also want to note that for the holidays, we are sending you all off with an extra special bonus episode this week. So we have not one, but two interviews, one with Guy and Carrie Ann and one with Charlie Puth, who also came by the studio this week to break down the sound of Christmas music.

3:54So be sure to check that out if you liked this episode. Okay, enough housekeeping. Let's get on with the show. Please welcome to On the Record, Guy Moot and Carrie Ann Marshall of Warner Chapel. Guy, Carrie Ann, thank you so much for coming to On the Record. Happy to be here. My pleasure. I wanted to start this off by talking about favorite Christmas music, favorite songs. Is there anything that immediately comes to mind? Guy, I'll start with you. Donny Hathaway, This Christmas. Ooh, okay. Soul, funky number. Yeah. Livens up some of that more traditional stuff, you know, some of the hymns that we grew up with in the UK and stuff like that.

4:30It's a funk soul jam, basically. Carrie Ann, what about you? Nat King Cole's Christmas album. That is like a holiday tradition for my family. And a little Elvis Christmas in there for my dad. Oh, okay. But the two of those. So does Elvis have, like, all I know is Blue Christmas. Is there, like, full Christmas albums? Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of, like, the traditional ones in there. But there's, like, yeah, there's a few others. But really Nat King Cole and, like, a lot of those classics always on repeat. Are any of those in your catalog at Warner Chapel? Like, do you all represent any of them?

5:03No, I'm just going purely on personal taste there. We are really blessed with some of the best Christmas songs in the world, though. So we're very lucky to have An Ophosie the Snowman Yeah, here comes Santa Claus George Michael Last Christmas The ultimate Christmas song So we have a treasure trove of good stuff In that department You know what's like really I think about this a lot though Some of the biggest Christmas songs Like we look after part of Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow Biggest Christmas songs actually are really non-denominational And weren't even written by Christian people so you think about a lot of these songs Winter Wonderland they don't even have Christmas in the title at all, they just kind of invoke a feeling and I think that's really interesting too about the I don't know, I think about that it sort of stretches beyond the holiday itself yeah, it's more seasonal yeah, that makes sense I love a contemporary Christmas song like Last Christmas Wham, how can you really beat that?

6:06it's polarizing that one I mean, that's 1984 that George wrote that after a Christmas breakup. And then I think there really hasn't been a recent big, big Christmas song, and I think that's a challenge for songwriters to try and mash out. Most probably Mariah Carey. Yeah, that's 90s, right? That's 94. Ariana Grande. But that's 10 years ago now. I mean, Kelly Clarkson had an original Christmas song that did quite well, but that was probably aughts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but that's actually one of the things that I wanted to talk to you guys about, because I feel like we're in this conversation talking about Christmas music, the business behind it, the industry behind it.

6:48And to me, Christmas music really does feel like a songwriter-based industry, because these songs are getting, if it's a hit, getting covered over and over and over by different recording artists, but the songwriters get paid every time. Sure. But it's still, it feels really hard to get one of those evergreen. I think it's one of the most difficult things. like the Holy Grail to write a new contemporary Christmas hit. And I guess people want that nostalgia. You grow up with those songs, you pay it to your children, and it symbolizes Christmas. But, I mean, people try. And, in fact, we just actually had a writer's camp.

7:23We have 50 of our writers in different cities put together a Christmas album, which we actually just released. That isn't a shameless plug, but it was like a bit of a shameless plug. But, I mean, it was also for synchronization. You know, again, when you're sort of asking people asking for the same titles, which is kind of great for our business. But I think to try and write new Christmas songs is challenging. But ultimately, it's a huge prize if you manage that. It's interesting, too, because I think about like some of the songs that are like evergreens that aren't really even Christmas songs, but tend to get licensed more around Christmas.

7:59Like What a Wonderful World. It's a really big one that gets licensed for a ton of holiday ads. yeah that's not a christmas song yeah you know hallelujah is the same way hallelujah started getting more and more associated with christmas even though like that doesn't quite make sense that song really doesn't have much to do with christmas no but i think it's like kind of that feeling and the other thing i think is sort of funny i know we were riffing before we started a little bit about the like uh british american thing but i think that there's a there's no but it's so interesting when the regional hits right like there's a huge huge christmas song written by a Canadian that is huge in the UK, but I'd literally never heard it until I got Driving Home for Christmas.

8:42That's Chris Rea. Fantastic song, which we do publish, actually. Has anybody heard of Slade? No. Oh, I mean, that is the Christmas party anthem, okay? Slade. Merry Christmas. Is it spelled like S-L-E-I? They were like a British glam rock band from the 70s, and they wrote a Christmas song that is like anthemic. It was like every office party, most of you in the UK. That sounds like essentially the Christmas equivalent of Angels by Robbie Williams. Not a big hit here. I mean, it's not like it wasn't a hit at all, but it is a British classic. Yeah, it's a few drinks sing-along anthem, which I'm not going to embarrass myself in this podcast and try a rendition of it, but go and play it, okay?

9:28yeah he's singing along but it is so funny when you think about that because i remember talking to some folks in the office and i was like no i i don't i don't know the song driving home for christmas and it was such a big hit probably like this one you're talking about too yeah and and it like just didn't make it over i don't know i i find that like interesting in general when songs that like don't even originate in the country or territory where they're the biggest or have an impact somewhere else. I just think it's fascinating. Greg Lake. You know, I believe in Father Christmas. No? Wait, Father Christmas?

10:02Yes, Father Christmas. Okay, see, I think that's what differentiates it. Like, Americans would never say Father Christmas. No. Really. No. Except for maybe like 50 years ago. I don't know. I don't even... It feels like a very old term. That's the title of the song, but... So I'm doing it accurately, but what would you say? Santa? Yes. Yeah. Okay. I mean, he can be Santa as well. You know? Yeah, Santa Claus. It's a fairly fictitional. Well, let's not even go down that road. But, you know, whatever. No, but I think we were talking about this too because, like, here comes Santa Claus, really big song here in the States and not quite as big outside the States.

10:33That is interesting. I could go on. Wizard. Remember Wizard? No. No. Okay. Don't remember it at all. So it's like the Mariah Carey, All I Want for Christmas is You, truly a global hit. That's global. Yeah. I mean, I can see already, like, in the UK charts, I don't want to specifically talk. Obviously, I live here in America, but that's my homeland. But I can already see Wham and Mariah Carey starting to go up the charts. I think they're sort of around already in the top five. You've got Taylor at one. We're hoping Ray will get to number one. Oh, where's my husband? Yes, but I'm worried. Well, it's a win-win because we look after the Wham catalog.

11:15So last Christmas is starting to get to here. and last Christmas I think two years in a row was number one in the UK but Mariah gets very close those are definitely the two most dominant songs I have a question for you guys because there's no Thanksgiving in the UK do people start playing Christmas music earlier and like decorating and stuff earlier that is a great question I think the Christmas decorations in the shop go up after Halloween I mean that's a retail thing but I think as soon as you hit December this is sort of the same Like, we actually have a tradition, and I say to my children, like, it's unlucky to play Christmas songs when it's not Christmas.

11:55But December 1st, which we just crossed, it's open season for Christmas songs. Okay, how do you feel about Christmas music after Christmas? Can't listen to it. Like, December 26th, you're done. No, that's just not right. I mean, no, no, no, maybe you get up until New Year's, you will accept it up until New Year, but after that, not acceptable. It's like leaving up the Christmas lights a little longer. Yeah, my parents do like Epiphany, which is like 13 days after Christmas. Okay. And then everything comes down. So, I don't know. Not everyone follows it. We're also actually religious and some people are just celebrating Christmas.

12:29We have 12 days of Christmas when you're meant to take the decorations. I know. It's the same thing, I guess. It would seem 12, 13. I mean, kind of a similar thing, I guess, right? You've got to stretch it a little bit. I do love the holiday season. I think it's pretty amazing. Like the festive feeling and all of that. And I think it was so interesting. So as I mentioned, we looked after last Christmas and our creative services team did like this really interesting marketing idea last year. And they had the members of Wham go do a spontaneous like sing along in London. And do you remember where it was exactly?

13:04King's Cross. King's Cross. And like it kind of like went viral and helped like we did all this other kind of marketing around it. but it was a really fun thing to sort of like get the group involved in the song that, you know, is obviously such a big. It's hard in a synchronization sense, I guess, you know, brands and advertising, I just start thinking about Christmas. You've got to start thinking about it. When do you think? Summer is when the sync team starts to get briefs for. So they have to listen to Christmas songs at that time. But you work far in advance for that, I guess. And there's also a lot of kudos in those adverts and getting the right one.

13:41Well, for TV season, I remember when there was a TV season and it was like fall, more predictable, music supervisors had to temp songs in much earlier than even ads. So it would be like July, August. And if you didn't get a song in or a request for a song in a TV show by then, it wasn't going to happen for that fall season. That's interesting. So when do you think most artists start recording their Christmas albums? Is it also around that same time if they plan to release it around November, December? I guess you have to think about it. Again, just as reading about George and Michael's last Christmas, he wrote it in February and I think recorded it in June.

14:24I guess he had to break up at Christmas and then wrote about it in February took a little time just to get over it and then obviously pulled it out into an amazing song so yeah I imagine so you have to start, it might probably be before this summer I would imagine and how has the process of people trying to create Christmas albums changed over time like now that we're in the streaming economy I feel like the idea of creating a full cohesive Christmas album might not be quite as important anymore, it's more about getting on playlists and having like a big song. Are you seeing more people go for singles or are people still going for their full albums?

15:00No, I think it's more songs. It's like the writing camp that we did too. None of those artists were actually putting together full Christmas albums. It was like a compilation. So they were all contributing songs for this compilation that we released. It wasn't about doing Christmas albums. I think it's one of the ultimate challenges. I've seen a lot of people's careers kind of like come to a, I wouldn't say an end, but a decline because I think if you get the Christmas song wrong and you're going on TV, I'm going to perform my Christmas song. No one likes your Christmas song. It's a tough thing if you're an established artist.

15:32And the danger of also adding sleigh bells to anything should come with a public warning. That's really funny, though. I mean, you know, it's really cliche, isn't it? So it's hard to capture that without being cliche. Again, people want a bit of nostalgia, but I think it's possible. I think Sia released a pretty good Christmas album a couple of years ago. I thought it was good. But again, I think people tend to veer to nostalgia. So maybe those newer songs need time to age or, again, need the placement or need to just percolate somewhere. You mentioned sleigh bells. And I'm thinking about when I used to do synchronization a number of years ago.

16:12And we would have, I'm thinking primarily of my time early at songs, and we would have some like really great like uplifting positive sort of songs and we would have versions recorded with sleigh bells so we could pitch them as holiday songs because the the lyrics were you know they would lend themselves to you know the spirit of giving or you know being together or family or something and so we would try to just like add a little bit of something So you've got to log in the catalog and just put sleigh bells. Yeah. Yeah. Y 'all got to bring that to Warner Chapel. That seems like an easy fix. If you're a sleigh bell session person, you're also only working at certain times of the year.

16:56That's something I could do. I could definitely be the sleigh bell person if you guys need me. Just let me know. Well, sometimes, though, that'll come as a request from either a music supervisor or somebody on the production side, an ad agency maybe. They'll say, like, can we tweak a song a little bit? Can we add something? we add strings can we add sleigh bells sleigh bells yes but it's not just for Christmas it's it's definitely for all sorts of like um you know it's really about changing the feeling of the song yeah and have you ever worked on a sync that like totally changed the life of a holiday song that like really brought it to new heights when it was placed in a film tv show or ad yes but nothing that is like not in the days where things are now like going viral before that it would definitely get There are some songs that are, you know, I don't even know if they're available for streaming now that had, you know, a couple uses here and there and had indie bands with a few albums sold.

17:55And they would, you know, extend the life of the album when we were talking about album cycles. But I think now one of the things that's really kind of exciting is there aren't cycles so much anymore. So if we have great songs like the ones that are folks recorded now or any of these holiday classics or standards that we're talking about, there's no time frame anymore. Part of that is awesome because nothing is stale. It doesn't matter as much. Part of it is really hard because you're competing against everything, not just the things that are released within a certain amount of time. Yeah. Is that because of streaming, basically, like the infinite shelf, infinite possibilities of what you can listen to?

18:35Yeah, absolutely. But that was kind of like what makes that trust in curation like even more important. So you talk about the curation from playlists or for, you know, where people go to find music. They like specific playlists on a, I don't know, streaming service. Or if you're talking about a relationship that our sync team may have with a music supervisor, a shortcut into somebody knowing their taste. It's like I think that we're thinking a lot more about, I don't know who those trusted curators are. whether they're like actually personal or if it's a brand again we were talking the other day about um a24 and how a24 has this like incredible brand it's trusted and how you know people used to have trusted and it happens into a certain extent extent now with record labels certainly but it was it was like that brand that trusted brand and i think people are kind of coming back to what is it that we how do we do that like it was radio stations for a while i know if i listen to this radio station i am going to hear music i like like what's the version of that now i think people are kind of seeking their communities that way and so curation is becoming more important it's great for christmas otherwise you've been up in your loft or your your garage garage um going when i put that big cross but you have them when i you know what i mean oh my gosh i used to So you'd most probably have to buy it once every year.

20:02But now you've got a whole just array of access to some of the best Christmas songs and some of the less-a-know ones as well. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it does really feel like playlisting and almost passive listening is very important for Christmas music. I feel like oftentimes when I'll turn to Christmas music is if I have people over and it's around the holidays, I'm like, okay, I'm just going to go to Spotify and click, you know, Christmas pop or Christmas jazz and just walk away. It's Christmas everything. I was listening to Christmas reggae last night. Christmas reggae. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

20:34Any hits? Treasure trove. There's actually a version of Donnie Hathaway's son. It's Christmas and reggae. Yeah. Yeah. So. Okay. Okay. I'll have to check that out. You know, it's so funny. My son, who's 12, said to me the other day, which is like so random. He goes, turn on 103.5. I'm like, coast 103.5. You don't even know what the radio is. Like he doesn't listen to the radio. and he's like, they're playing Christmas songs. And I said, but I can play, we can listen to them on Apple Music or Spotify or whatever. And he's like, no, I want to hear the radio. I said, how do you even know about this?

21:09And he goes, the bus driver on the way to school was playing Christmas songs on Coast 103.5. Wow. And I'm like, that is wild. Yeah. Yes. Isn't that funny though? It's just like what gets sticky? We can give them some of our own playlists to play next time and just, you know, as an influencer. Yeah, totally. We've got to infiltrate that bus. We've got to program the bus. I imagine that radio is still a huge driver for Christmas music and especially for publishing and the value that it brings to the songwriters who wrote those songs. But also, I mean, I imagine also a lot of Christmas music is so traditional that it's in the public domain at this point too.

21:49Like if you go back to your hymns, like your very, very classic stuff, I guess you don't really need to pay anyone on publishing. But you could copyright a new version. Yeah, like an arrangement? Yeah. Okay. Okay. And so we'll see some of that, like a twist on an old, we'll come all you faithful or something. It's a funny time because obviously it's harder for new artists or if you're trying to break a record at that time of year because all of a sudden December comes and I think most people are trying to avoid that spot. But yeah. Yeah. It does feel like this is the zone where if you're trying to get a song to number one, you're now competing with 100 absolutely uh jingle bell rock and i was just looking at our charts um from the week of december 6th and you start to see it all climb up the taylor swift song is still number one on the billboard hot 100 but i mean i i wouldn't be shocked if by the time this episode comes out that christmas music is at the top um but i'm curious so for songwriters i I know that y 'all did this camp, but are camps common in this situation where you're trying to create new Christmas hits or create new Christmas recordings?

22:59Yeah, I have to give credit to our A &R and creative team. So I think part of it was just, yeah, like I say, let's have a go at creating brand new Christmas hits. But then also some of it is like, how do we create songs that are also very syncable? Because there's always going to be a huge demand for campaigns and adverts using Christmas music. and yeah, sure, give them some more options, we say. So it sounds really strong. Some of it is obviously much more contemporary, contemporary pop, different styles. But yeah, I think they had a lot of fun doing it. Like I say, it's kind of like, I think if you seriously go looking for that Christmas hit, you may fail.

23:37I think it's a lot of effort to put into something that's so kind of like difficult to actually hit the nail on the head and compete with the nostalgia of catalog. but it's a lot of fun in a writing time because I say, hey, let's go and write some kind of Christmas songs. And I think that comes across in the music. And great, if we get a couple of sync payments, sync fees that the camp's been paid for as well. But everybody had a lot of fun, I'm sure. But I think also when we think about camps, it's not one-dimensional, right? So this one in particular is not a ton of pressure. It'll be just trying to land a huge cut on some big pop star's record.

24:16They're having fun, they're writing, and also they're the artists in the session. They're building community, having fun, and really, like, I think, as we were saying before, if there's not a song that is time-stamped in a way, it can be pitched or used in all sorts of areas for a long, long time. Well, I said, it's tough to write a new Christmas hit, but I think they're there, and they're there on streaming services forever. Yeah. So somebody would pick it up. Maybe it would go viral. Something happened. So I was saying it's difficult in the immediate, but maybe there's always long-term value in Christmas songs.

24:51Totally. That playlist playing in the background or that person who suddenly finds it and does a version of it or does a TikTok to it or something. So I think it's great. I'm not deterring people from going out and trying to write Christmas hits. Yeah. It might not be immediate, though. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I was kind of thinking about Christmas music and it does feel like a very valuable thing to have if you can actually hit the nail on the head and get a true hit that comes back year after year. But also when it comes back year after year, there's also, you know, most of the time during the other parts of the year where no one's listening to it at all.

25:23Yeah, totally. It's a very seasonal spike, but I'd say it's very consistent. You know, if you're looking at the economics of songs or if you're looking to buy a Christmas song, they're very, very dependable and steady earnings, which is what a lot of people like. Interesting. It is funny, though, like to see which songs go in and out of favor. I'm just like thinking about some ridiculous shit. Like I think, you know, when you put on some of these like classic Christmas songs, right, you get like Nat King Cole and you get like Dean Martin and you get, you know, some Brenda Lee and you get some of these like it's a mixture of like some of all these like classics.

26:00but somehow somewhere a few of these random songs have made themselves like gotten their I guess made their way onto these playlists and are now all over the place like Dominic the Christmas Donkey oh oh my gosh just wait you're gonna there's that one and then there's like I want a hippopotamus for Christmas was that not popular before it was like yes but all of a sudden but they weren't on like the Bing Crosby Christmas album. Yeah. Like no one's buying that album. Dominic the donkey. It's not a good one. No, no, no. It's kind of awesome. Whoever wrote that one. I'm not Googling that either. I'm definitely not Googling.

26:40No, the Italian Christmas donkey. Oh my gosh. Seriously. So, but my point being, like as Guy was saying at the beginning, when you're buying albums, when you were, when we were all buying cassettes or vinyl or CDs or whatever, it was like really the classics you'd buy Dean Martin or you'd buy Donny Hathaway or you'd buy that like you know I want to hip up on this for Christmas is not going to be on the Dean Martin album yeah so like swap you Slade and Wizard okay Dominic the donkey and I want to hit the bottom well I found out I think mine's even a little more highbrow than yours wait so check this out I like went down the rabbit hole last year about this like hippopotamus song so i'm like what is what is this and that's what's kind of cool like these songs are kind of getting pulled back out of the ether to be added to playlist maybe it was 10 years ago maybe it was who knows when it was but it was certainly not on the original classics i don't think and that song i'll probably get it kind of wrong but it's an interesting idea that song was written as like a promotion for like the cleveland zoo or something that hippopotamus song yes we'll have to look it Is this a parody of Little Donkey?