Re: RadioShack drops the "Radio" in its name - wants to keep away from dying tech
Radio Shack USED to be the place you could find any radio part or accessory you ever needed. Last time I was in one, I saw nothing but cell phones and electronic gadgets, PDAs, some computers and computer items. But ABSOLUTELY NO RADIOS. WHATSOEVER. ZIP. NADA.
Curious, I asked the salesperson where the radios were. She said they were a "catalog" item now. I then asked her what I came there for; a replacement FM antenna for an old ghetto blaster. She said they no longer carried those.....
So I wandered about this radioless Radio Shack, looking at the mess of CD cleaners, headphones, CD wallets, the few indoor TV antennas (all of questionable quality with ridiculously high prices) and the few dusty blank cassettes. And finally lo and behold, just a few inches away from the blank cassettes in the very back of the retail end of the store, under a layer of dust, laid the damnedest sight ever in 2003:
Blank 8-Track cartridge tapes.
And blank reel to reel tape, splicing tape and grease pencils. In the digital world even.
It was about this time I had COMPLETELY given up on Radio Shack for ANYTHING useful. Even by the close of the '80s, they were expensive, often had incompetent sales/management staff, similarly incompetent products (CASSETTE SPLICERS??) and radios that were reconstituted from models of other manufacturers deleted the previous year (namely GE, Emerson and RCA.) - only with cheaper components and a heftier price tag than the originals. Radio Shack once had a lot of quality to their name. Now it's basically a place to get expensive battery powered TOYS they wouldn't even sell in dollar stores.
Now they're becoming "The Shack" This may not sit well countless other independent espresso stands, pubs, teriyaki joints and strip bars also called "The Shack". But beyond that, it's actually that they, like many people, have simply lost the nostalgic value of radio. A value that only reappears when the electricity to everything else is gone. (Or when you need a replacement antenna and Radio Shack was the only known electronic supply store in town for MILES.....)
The legacy that was once Radio Shack's now belongs to C. Crane, whom fortunately still know a RADIO when they see one. And business is good down there I hear. I'm also lucky to be near some insanely expensive, but resourceful indie electronics supply stores. Who have reaped the whirlwind of Radio Shack's demise with the same orgasmic joy a radio programmer feels when he/she slays their most behemoth competitor with almost no effort whatsoever on their part....
"The Shack" is a fitting name though for an electronics store of the former Radio Shack's calibre today.....as it's mostly miscellaneous electronic flotsam and jetsam sold there now, not RADIOS......
