In the days when FM stations could have subcarriers at both 67 and 92 kHz on the baseband, Muzak would put its standard service on 67 and a more contemporary, upbeat service on 92. Some markets had just one, some had both - and of the ones with both, sometimes the 67 and 92 subcarriers were on different stations (this was the case in St. Louis).
And in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Perú and Chile, there were local services designed with more culturally linked music of the same style. The first FM in South America, in Lima, was a home grown background music provider via its SCA's while doing an MOR / Beautiful music format on the open signal.
Do you know if there are similar services on HD channels now, at least in Mexico?
Yoko Ono has many talents, but sadly singing is not one of them. I remember when Double Fantasy came out. The album sequence alternated between Lennon's songs and hers. I guess John didn't want to be cruel and put her stuff on side 2 only. Unfortunately, listeners had to suffer...😑
The worst thing CVS ever did, in my opinion, was to take over the old Stacey's Bookstore space on Market Street in San Francisco.
Stacey's...oh man, I haven't heard that name in decades! They had an amazing bookstore; one of the Bay Area's gems.
During my first time working at Lowe's the store policy was to not announce that the store was closing but to lock the doors and start dimming the lights. But too many times some customers had the attitude that meant it was their own private shopping time and would get even worse about not getting out. I was for playing Closing Time by Semisonic or some other song that it was time to close repeatedly until the stragglers got the message.
folsomtimes.com
Both CVS and Walgreens overwork their pharmacists:In all seriousness, that's a solid comparison. Folsom has a population of about 80,000 and growing. We had two Walgreens stores for at least 20 years. Six months ago, they closed one and transferred everyone's prescriptions to the remaining store.
That store is now so overburdened by being the only Walgreens in a city this size that filling prescriptions sent over from a doctor can take as much as six to eight hours----less than optimal for the "I want you to go to bed and start this right away" meds.
And that, in turn, has caused a lot of longtime customers (myself included) to jump ship---some to CVS (two stores plus the pharmacy inside Target), and some (myself included) to my local Raley's grocery store pharmacy, which gets stuff done (so far) in an hour or less.
The ongoing troubles at the big drug store chains is odd, when you consider that 20 years ago, demographers looked at all the aging Boomers and said "growth opportunities for pharmacies, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians will be huge for the remainder of Boomers' life cycles".
Here's how the pharmacy trades saw it 14 years ago:
The Pharmacy Industry's Evolution: 2000 to 2010
www.drugchannels.net
Instead, you've got Walgreens closing 450 stores at a shot last year---150 of them in the USA, including Folsom, which is going to be something very different:
Vacant Folsom Walgreens To Become Altitude Trampoline Park – Folsom Times
Since it became vacant last year, many have pondered what may become of the former Walgreens pharmacy on the corner of Riley Street and Glenn Drive in Folsom.
Three words: pharmacy benefit managers. I sometimes refer to them as "pharmaceutical kickback managers". Allegedly their purpose is to negotiate lower prices for drugs. What they really do is interfere in the physician-patient relationship, requiring use of formularies and denying coverage for some common drugs because manufacturers won't give them incentives. They run mail-order pharmacies as well. In some corporate plans, the use of such pharmacies is mandatory. This can be more convenient, but it's pitched as a cost-saving measure, which it really isn't. Instead PBMs are just another middleman taking their cut.
The quality of Walgreens locations varied a lot even before that. The best one I was ever in was in Idaho Falls, where I happened to be for some work with a federal agency and where I found I needed a refill that I hadn't brought along with me.
Until the 1970s, the Midwestern equivalent was Katz, based in Kansas City. A few communities had a "Katz Discount City" as well.
