Why do shops all have the same boring music playing? I've worked in several shops in the past and got so fed up listening to the same rubbish that I came up with the idea for Shop Radio.

We pay subscriptions to Digital TV and radio at home, why can't shops do this? They already pay out for the rights to play new music anyway. Dedicated radio stations run by MTV type organisation (or similar) could be run where companies can subscribe and have a wide range of music, different all the time, and even advertise to customers (not sure exactly how the advertising would work... rival companies promoting services over other shops??)

Anyway, I've heard enough "lift music" in shops to last me a lifetime!
-- JoBarton, Mar 13 2002

Analog + Digital Platforms http://www.wegener.com/
Supplier to, among others, Muzak [reensure, Mar 13 2002]

As I understand it, Musak is intended to be inoffensive and uncontroversial, but pleasant. 'Course this is the recipe for boredom, too.

Why not just bring a radio, tape or CD player with you to work and play what you like?
-- phoenix, Mar 13 2002


asda fm
-- technobadger, Mar 13 2002


ROFL over PeterSealy's "baked to a blackened crisp" !

Our satellite radio in NY, USA has over 100 channels of different types of music. You probably won't hear the same song twice in your lifetime.
-- blainez, Mar 14 2002


Several store chains have their in-house "music" broadcast from a central location, so two Dixon's stores in, say, Bolton and Ipswich would have the same music playing at the same time.
-- angel, Mar 14 2002


Baked, according to an Expert On The Matter at my local Sears, whom I asked about this very phenomenom. Apparently, Sears gets music piped in from an XM-like satellite radio source. He claimed that the exact music that is playing at *his* Sears is also playing simultaneously in the Sears in, say, Cleveland.
-- jester, Mar 16 2002


You cannot play a radio, or CD-player, in a public place (like a store) without paying public performance licensing fees. ASCAP and BMI both have agents that do nothing but wander around looking for shops and stores that are playing the radio or other unlicensed music. The legal consequences are very serious. This is why Muzak and AEI exist: they have dealt with the licensing agencies and can sell stores a music feed whose content does not run afoul of the byzantine music licensing laws.
-- bristolz, Mar 16 2002


[JoBarton]'s idea isn't concerned with public performance, just her own listening pleasure as an employee. My original annotation implied the idea is a rant (which I still believe).
-- phoenix, Mar 16 2002


If the CD player or whatever was behind the counter, say, it's 'public performance', unless they're wearing headphones. I used to know someone who worked at a store that got a 'cease and desist' over that.

But yeah, it looks like a rant to me, too.
-- StarChaser, Mar 17 2002



random, halfbakery