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Muzak

Grocery Outlet too, minus most of the . But they will play ads in the middle of songs as well.
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IBN seem to have gotten more aggressive shoving their coronavirus commercials down everybody's throats at Fred's. They now have a second (!) announcement voiced by a female announcer, with basically the same text as the male announcer but worded differently (albeit, perhaps refreshingly, absent the "as we all do our part" etc. BS near the end). But wait, there's more! If that wasn't enough to induce thoughts compelling you to head towards the cutlery aisle, now they'll run not only two but sometimes three (?!?) repetitions per ad stopset between store commercials, in addition to just plopping in the middle of a cut! So with so much repetition (I counted it one day last week) you're liable to hear the same rubbish no fewer than 18 times in an hour. I wish I could say that figure were an exaggeration.

It really makes for a fifth- or sixth-class and highly unprofessional sounding presentation. One can't help but pity the poor corporate subordinate who makes the decision to spend company money on an IBN subscription. Do Kroger bean counters even listen to what their customers' money is buying? And just what the hell is going on at IBN anyways? Have they hired a bunch of stoned chimpanzees who have no clue how to program a playout system?

Funnily, they seem to have re-recorded the "rent-a-cop to section X" spots. Now they have more "natural" intonation (to somebody's ears, anyways), including a long pregnant pause between repetitions. I guess they're trying to imitate the style of somebody speaking it through the PABX and Rolm fones? You'd think they would have used a more appropriate EQ and somebody other than the programme announcers! But they still have only the same two sections ("A" and "C") and two announcements. Still not fooling anybody.... Special Recordings were playing that little game on K-Mart reels clear back in the 70s.

Eh, you get what you pay for.

I notice my local Grocery Outlet plays their music on soft volume and their announcements on high volume nowadays. Like commercials, they are designed to get the message out yet annoy some of the shoppers.
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At Fred's they do that too. Are Grocery Outlet IBN? They have them around here but I wouldn't know since I wouldn't set foot in one.
 
Music Choice's Audio version of Soft Rock via DirecTV is the BGM of choice at Coporate Department Store (where I work). Don't know if it differs from the Video Cable TV version. I find it interesting that along with ABBA's "Dancing Queen", Bon Jovi's "You Give Love A Bad Name" plays at least once per shift.
 
CaliRadioFan said:
Music Choice's Audio version of Soft Rock via DirecTV is the BGM of choice at Coporate Department Store (where I work). Don't know if it differs from the Video Cable TV version. I find it interesting that along with ABBA's "Dancing Queen", Bon Jovi's "You Give Love A Bad Name" plays at least once per shift.
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If it's the same Music Choice that's available via Comcast, there is an awful lot of repetition on at least some of their channels. Sometimes in the evenings, I'd listen to jazz on our NPR station. When they cut that, I tried Music Choice's jazz channel but it became so repetitious that I ended up switching it off and going elsewhere for more variety and a much larger library.
 
I was in IHOP last night dining with some friends. Don't know what they are using as a business music source, but the intercom played some rarities, including Gino Vanelli's 'I Just Wanna Stop' (1978) and Simply Red's 'Something Got Me Started' (1991). At least the pancakes were great!
 
crainbebo said:
I was in IHOP last night dining with some friends. Don't know what they are using as a business music source, but the intercom played some rarities, including Gino Vanelli's 'I Just Wanna Stop' (1978) and Simply Red's 'Something Got Me Started' (1991). At least the pancakes were great!
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I think sit-down restaurants in general play from a softer, slower variety to make you feel at ease. I don't know if it's from a network or not. There is a rest-stop about 35 minutes away from me that plays Sirius XM, while my local bowling alley as well as a Runza restaurant plays directly off-air (The former of which made that abundantly clear when they changed stations and it got staticky.) Also, my local tire shop does Music Choice from Cable.

And yeah, IHOP pancakes are my favorite! 🥞:love::love:
 
crainbebo said:
I was in IHOP last night dining with some friends. Don't know what they are using as a business music source, but the intercom played some rarities, including Gino Vanelli's 'I Just Wanna Stop' (1978) and Simply Red's 'Something Got Me Started' (1991). At least the pancakes were great!
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The iHOP closest to me uses SiriusXM (most often The Blend).
 
Music Choice's audio version of "Soft Rock" via DirecTV is the BGM of choice at corporate department stores (where I work). Don't know if it differs from the cable TV version which has video.
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If it's the same Music Choice that's available via Comcast, there is an awful lot of repetition on at least some of their channels.
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AFAIK Music Choice have only the one DVB service on either Intelsat or AMC. That's the one that cable monopolies like Comcrap and inDirectv relay and MC's business service uses . Muzak of course have their one master feed on SES-3 alongside the legacy Echostar service, which I believe they're trying to transition businesses off of, and due to its huge installed base probably won't happen any time soon. They just recently (meaning, a couple months ago) discontinued their VERY legacy analogue service via whatever Galaxy C3 is known as these days (look how long it took for them to bury SCA).

I was in IHOP last night dining with some friends. Don't know what they are using as a business music source, but it played some rarities, including
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The IHOP closest to me uses SiriusXM (most often The Blend).
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Strictly speaking for the Vancouver-area IHOP. franchises, anyways, they use Muzak; always have. My locals have run Environmental since days of antiquity. The Vancouver Mall franchise (when it was still in the mall) probably used SCA at one point! I don't know if that decision is made on the corporate or franchisee level, so your local/s may use Muzak or something else. Could be you were hearing Foreground Music One there, which the now-closed one off SE 164th also used when they weren't running 7890.

The Shari's franchise group in Vancouver had Muzak from at least the mid-80s until about 2010 or so when Geo. W. Bush & Co. LLP's recession necessitated dropping it for the much cheaper, you-get-what-you-pay-for Sirius simulcasts (6000s block). They are Echostar users. For the longest time my two locals ran Expressions ("AUD03"/925) but more recently were running either the Sirius contemporary country format (bleh) or one of the soft rock formats like The Bland (only marginally better). But that's why we have old Foreground and Expressions airchecks and earphones innit? 🥞 The non-franchise, O&O Shari's by the mall (in other words, the crappy one) still were running Muzak last time I was in there about 3 or 4 years ago, but I wouldn't set foot in that ptomaine factory nowadays. Ick.

And just for future reference, the abbreviation "IHOP" (for "International House of Pancakes") is not an Apple Computer brand name and the leading "I" is *always* capitalised.
 
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Yeah, that silly promo sure didn't last long, did it? :LOL:
 
oldradiotapes said:
AFAIK Music Choice have only the one DVB service on either Intelsat or AMC. That's the one that cable monopolies like Comcrap and inDirectv relay and MC's business service uses . Muzak of course have their one master feed on SES-3 alongside the legacy Echostar service, which I believe they're trying to transition businesses off of, and due to its huge installed base probably won't happen any time soon. They just recently (meaning, a couple months ago) discontinued their VERY legacy analogue service via whatever Galaxy C3 is known as these days (look how long it took for them to bury SCA).




Strictly speaking for the Vancouver-area IHOP. franchises, anyways, they use Muzak; always have. My locals have run Environmental since days of antiquity. The Vancouver Mall franchise (when it was still in the mall) probably used SCA at one point! I don't know if that decision is made on the corporate or franchisee level, so your local/s may use Muzak or something else. Could be you were hearing Foreground Music One there, which the now-closed one off SE 164th also used when they weren't running 7890.

The Shari's franchise group in Vancouver had Muzak from at least the mid-80s until about 2010 or so when Geo. W. Bush & Co. LLP's recession necessitated dropping it for the much cheaper, you-get-what-you-pay-for Sirius simulcasts (6000s block). They are Echostar users. For the longest time my two locals ran Expressions ("AUD03"/925) but more recently were running either the Sirius contemporary country format (bleh) or one of the soft rock formats like The Bland (only marginally better). But that's why we have old Foreground and Expressions airchecks and earphones innit? 🥞 The non-franchise, O&O Shari's by the mall (in other words, the crappy one) still were running Muzak last time I was in there about 3 or 4 years ago, but I wouldn't set foot in that ptomaine factory nowadays. Ick.

And just for future reference, the abbreviation "IHOP" (for "International House of Pancakes") is not an Apple Computer brand name and the leading "I" is *always* capitalised.
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OK you've piqued my interest...Do you go to various IHOP locations and other restaurants and quiz them about their background music service?
 
oldradiotapes said:
AFAIK Music Choice have only the one DVB service on either Intelsat or AMC. That's the one that cable monopolies like Comcrap and inDirectv relay and MC's business service uses . Muzak of course have their one master feed on SES-3 alongside the legacy Echostar service, which I believe they're trying to transition businesses off of, and due to its huge installed base probably won't happen any time soon. They just recently (meaning, a couple months ago) discontinued their VERY legacy analogue service via whatever Galaxy C3 is known as these days (look how long it took for them to bury SCA).




Strictly speaking for the Vancouver-area IHOP. franchises, anyways, they use Muzak; always have. My locals have run Environmental since days of antiquity. The Vancouver Mall franchise (when it was still in the mall) probably used SCA at one point! I don't know if that decision is made on the corporate or franchisee level, so your local/s may use Muzak or something else. Could be you were hearing Foreground Music One there, which the now-closed one off SE 164th also used when they weren't running 7890.

The Shari's franchise group in Vancouver had Muzak from at least the mid-80s until about 2010 or so when Geo. W. Bush & Co. LLP's recession necessitated dropping it for the much cheaper, you-get-what-you-pay-for Sirius simulcasts (6000s block). They are Echostar users. For the longest time my two locals ran Expressions ("AUD03"/925) but more recently were running either the Sirius contemporary country format (bleh) or one of the soft rock formats like The Bland (only marginally better). But that's why we have old Foreground and Expressions airchecks and earphones innit? 🥞 The non-franchise, O&O Shari's by the mall (in other words, the crappy one) still were running Muzak last time I was in there about 3 or 4 years ago, but I wouldn't set foot in that ptomaine factory nowadays. Ick.

And just for future reference, the abbreviation "IHOP" (for "International House of Pancakes") is not an Apple Computer brand name and the leading "I" is *always* capitalised.
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I heard The Blend announcer at least once at that IHOP
 
vchimpanzee said:
Sure. Who knows how many irritating songs? And please don't say "background" like it's not something I would actually hear.
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Geez, I'd never get a prescription refilled at CVS if I headed for the exit every time a song I didn't like came on while I was in line. I can just picture it: "Colors of the Wind," fine, "Don't Dream It's Over," OK, "Bubbly," not terrible, "Young Turks," sure ... but just as I finally get to be next in line ... ack! "Love Will Keep Us Together" comes on and I bolt for the doors! Ummm, nope. I tough it out.
 
Do you go to various IHOP locations and other restaurants and quiz them about their background music service?
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The one by Vancouver Mall is obviously Muzak because AFAIK Muzak are The Only One™ that plays the original (pseudo-exclusive*) songs that appear on Environmental, which they'd used since, like, forever. No questions there.

[ * Actually Envoe have been using third-party commercial releases since the mid-90s in addition to their own original library music, e.g. "Harley Music" or Daniel Ho's band "Flyin' Hawaiian Brothers". Various compilations and library CDs of such music are available on Amazon. Do a search there for "Disk Eyes", "Manasus Music" and "Time Pools", for example. "Donny Marrow", "Lenny Moore", "Grassmasters" and "Network Music" are also worth looking up. A lot of that stuff is available on Youtube (format 140). Lately they've even been running classic Stimulus Progression LP cuts into the service, through the "Muzak Archives" project. Way cool. ]

One day at the one on SE 164th, they were short-staffed and the manager was filling in for one of the waiters, so I asked her. She said it was "this satellite radio thing that comes out of North Carolina" which just had to mean Muzak (Fort Mill is in the Charlotte, NC metro -- like Vancouver and Portland).
 
Music Choice left satellite months ago, it is now exclusively delivered by the Internet.

It seems that the Mood/Muzak 7890 service rebranded recently to 'Decades' and dumped the 1970s songs. Camila Cabello, Charlie Puth, and others are now on the playlist (from the '10s). And FM1 hardly ever plays a '70s song anymore.

This morning I was in Rite Aid doing errands. Based on the few songs I heard, the background music leans to a '90s/'00s/today Hot AC mix, probably from In-Store Broadcasting Network. Of which after a couple of those songs came a couple of cheery announcements about getting Covid boosters, pointing out that "this ad is sponsored by BioNTech/Pfizer". With that and those "mask up!"/"top of the hour everybody, time to sanitize!" announcements at Freddy's, it feels like being in a dystopic movie. Replace the 'feel-good' pop music with Bert Kaempfert and Roger Williams and you get my point!
 
Music Choice left satellite months ago, it is now exclusively delivered by the Internet.
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Huh. I was definitely not aware of that, but it explains the sudden lack of Music Choice listings on Lyngsat when I tried to look it up the other day!

Mood have been trying to push their Muzak satellite users onto an IP-based system for at least a few years (Encompass MV, IIRC). If past tech killoffs are any indication it'll take them quite a while, mainly because of the extremely large existing installed satellite customer base.

It seems that the Mood/Muzak 7890 service rebranded recently to 'Decades' and dumped the 1970s songs. Camila Cabello, Charlie Puth, and others are now on the playlist (from the '10s).
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This is, what, its sixth or seventh title change now? Thanks for the update; I'll add it to my airchecks.

And FM1 hardly ever plays a '70s song anymore.
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They actually started phasing 70s songs out of that format a few years ago. compdude512 (produces the ClearFM stream) showed me a playlist study he compiled over the course of several weeks in 2019 and the number of 70s songs IIRC was less than 10, but I'd have to find my disc and look it up. By his analysis the entire on-air library as of April 2019 consisted of around 700 selections. They also trimmed it to basically nothing, in part no thanks to the Soundexchange lawsuit a couple years ago. cd512 and I believe Mood may also be hiring washed-up ex-IHurtRadio programmers who brought their bad habits with them. I suppose they're adjusting it to fit the demographic specification the library is designed for (like how AM Only rarely plays 40s music, and 50s is also in short supply, transitioning to a 70s- and 80s-driven soft rock format since the people who listened to that music when it was new are now approaching, or have aged into, their target age group) but in the process they also gutted it of the unique "FM1 sound" it had been known for, and made it as great as it was.

Strictly MHO.
 
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CTListener said:
Geez, I'd never get a prescription refilled at CVS if I headed for the exit every time a song I didn't like came on while I was in line. I can just picture it: "Colors of the Wind," fine, "Don't Dream It's Over," OK, "Bubbly," not terrible, "Young Turks," sure ... but just as I finally get to be next in line ... ack! "Love Will Keep Us Together" comes on and I bolt for the doors! Ummm, nope. I tough it out.
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I guess I don't quite get that. Yes, I don't mind something unusual in the store, and I've been known to Soundhound a song, but the purpose of music in the store isn't for music geeks to spend hours walking around the store listening to music and not buying anything. It's to drive sales, either getting people in and out or subliminally getting the stay at home Mom thinking about buying a steak for her man.

Jim Scott, now retired from WLW, was the voice of Kroger in commercials and in the stores in the Cincinnati area, but not in East Tennessee.
 
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