(the station eventually adopted a rhythmic top 40 format in September 2012 as Energy 106.9). In 2011, WWWN/Chicago and WEMP/New York—which had recently been sold to Merlin Media—transitioned from alternative rock to all-news radio as FM News. As a transitional format, both stations aired a format branded as FM New, which featured adult contemporary music interspersed with news, traffic, and weather updates from personalities who would serve under the new FM News formats. On October 8, 2014, KROI/Houston ended its all-news format and began stunting as B92, playing only music by Houston-native Beyoncé. The stunt led into its relaunch as classic hip-hop Boom 92. KEGY/San Diego used an unbranded mainstream rock format as part of its transition from CHR to a new hot talk-oriented format in 2018. The stunt's playlist featured Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine" at the top of each hour, which teased its eventual branding as The Machine. Multiple stations in the United States and Canada have stunted with Chinese music under the branding Kung Pao, such as KDOG (which led into a flip to classic hits), WVHT (which led into its re-launch as CHR Hot 100), and CIGM (which led into its re-launch as CHR Hot 93.5). Christmas music and other holiday formats The popular practice of radio stations playing all-Christmas music during the lead-up to (and occasionally the week after) Christmas Day has sometimes been used as a transitional period between formats. As of 2022, there were over 660 radio stations in North America that stunt Christmas music throughout each holiday season, with 627 stations in the United States and 33 stations in Canada. Sometimes, Christmas music is used as a more blatant stunt format outside of the holiday season, in a similar spirit to ironic "Christmas in July" promotions. In April 2008, new Saskatoon radio station CFWD-FM stunted with Christmas music as Santa FM as part of its soft launch, accompanied by a promotional campaign in which publicists in Santa Claus costumes paraded through the city. The station officially launched as CHR-formatted Wired 96.3 on April 11. In November 2012, the station laid off its airstaff and flipped to Christmas music for the season, emerging as adult hits 96.3 Cruz FM on December 26, 2012. In late-September 2015, Duluth's WEBC dropped its sports radio format in favor of Ho Ho 106.5, before emerging in early-October as classic rock Sasquatch 106.5. On October 7, 2015,