Do people want different styles of music to not get bored or one same one? For instance, awkward segues are a tune out in cars, but what about the office where one sets a station in the background. For instance, KCMO FM in Kansas City is always at the top of the ratings, while KCKC it's indirect competitor, is near the bottom usually (we had a thread on that one a few years back.) But what factors go into listening to a station at work vs. casually flipping in the car for a song one doesn't like?
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Listening preferences at work.
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
Most "at work" listening is not in offices. As I have said many times before: It's at the loading dock, the stock room, in the delivery truck, at the construction project, in the machine shop... places where there are just a couple of people at most and they can decide on one station.
Easily Amused
Banned
If you've worked in a vehicle or equipment repair shop, odds are fairly good you're listening to 'geezer (classic) rock'. Even the young techs just learning the trade seem to listen to classic rock.
The one shop I spent time in was big enough that I was way out in a far corner, and I could easily have a small radio tuned to the classical stations or NPR and CBC. A few years later, I filled in as a shipkeeper on a boat in winter lay up in Toronto, and the satellite television receiver set up featured Stingray audio in the package. Nothing but relaxing baroque or chamber music channels for me.
The one shop I spent time in was big enough that I was way out in a far corner, and I could easily have a small radio tuned to the classical stations or NPR and CBC. A few years later, I filled in as a shipkeeper on a boat in winter lay up in Toronto, and the satellite television receiver set up featured Stingray audio in the package. Nothing but relaxing baroque or chamber music channels for me.
I'm trying to imagine any of the newspapers I worked for having any radio but a police scanner playing in the newsroom. I can't do it. I can't imagine any reporter or editor wanting background music from a radio playing while they're at work.
Lest that reporter insert a non-sequitur about a rocket man into their article.
@tall_guy1: If we're talking about an actual office (i.e. white collar work), I have never heard music being played by the business for a group of employees. At work listening is done at the discretion of one individual employee in their private office or cubicle, usually on headphones/earbuds, and subject to that employee's whims. So the behavior isn't meaningfully different than that same person in their private car.
In cubicle farms, playing music is common, as a means to drown out the office gossip/drama, or the sales guy two cubicles down who is always loudly talking on Zoom. My anecdotal experience over several years working in a cube suggests these people are 95% using streaming services, not radio.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Presuming they don't work somewhere like a call center, you're very likely correct with that presumption.
Which at the very least eliminates arguments between co-workers over what station to listen to.
Where I am, auto repair shops, tire stores, auto washes, and the like have a Regional Mexican station on... and loud. Same for the crew that painted our house this Spring.
Yep. Here the only places that play music inside are the doctor’s and dentist’s offices. Usually the soft rock station or maybe the adult hits Chuck FM station. The one restaurant we go into always has Pandora on.
Here in VT/NH, restaurants and convenience stores tend to use one of two local country stations -- except for the Mexican, Chinese, Indian and Jamaican restaurants, which get appropriate music from the internet. Although I ate at the Jamaican restaurant yesterday and heard reggae, reggae and more reggae, until suddenly and unexpectedly, Chris Stapleton's Tennessee Whiskey came on! Go figure...
I hope the song wasn’t Jamaican you crazy
No, just surprised. I suspect that someone working at the restaurant had a personal mixtape, or the digital equivalent, on. It serves both Jamaican and Haitian cuisine and the owner is Haitian, not sure about the cooks or other staff. (The Karibbean in West Lebanon, NH, in case you want to look it up.) I was mixing and matching today -- Haitian griot and Jamaican pumpkin and chicken soup.
Funny thing is, I'd had Stapleton's SiriusXM channel playing in the car before stopping for lunch, and what do you think the first song I heard upon returning to the car was? Yup, "Tennesssee Whiskey." The channel, of course, plays a lot of his music, but also ventures into bluegrass, alt-country, classic country, R&B and classic rock. I don't think I've ever heard any reggae on it, though.
Back in my cubical dates before streaming, we were lucky because there were 5 of us so every day someone has "their day". I had Thursday. I did learn how to mentally "tune out" the radio 📻 on certain days. Eventually I started tuning out everyday including Thursday.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
And did you also, since you were tuned out, choose the most annoying station for your co-workers on Thursdays?
Classical gets them every time.
Would it have mattered?
More noise (probably impulse noise) in the AM band due to electrical noise caused by the factory equipment.
Kirk Bayne
I fractured a shoulder in 2012 and had to go to months of rehab sessions, twice a week, at a place where the therapists all had "their day" with the radio. Tuesday was hot AC, Thursday CHR. To this day, every time I hear "Call Me Maybe" reminds me of those sessions, because both stations were playing that song. At one point, I asked the therapist who was torturing, I mean, working with me if she or any of the other PTs liked country music. She didn't (turned out she was the hot AC fan) but said the country station sometimes got played on Mondays. Stupid me for asking so late in my recovery. I only had a couple of weeks to go. Otherwise, I seriously would have asked for a schedule change just to get away from Carly Rae Jepsen for a few hours!
I hear that around crews doing yard work, construction or that sort of thing.
The garage where I go has the oldies station I have posted about but it does advertise there. I'm guessing it's the translator.
you really don't get out much.......
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