Czech Supermarket to Turn Off the Holiday Tunes

The songs of the season—be they originals or bad cover versions of carols and pop tunes—can be one person’s ear candy or another person’s torture.

Globus supermarket is now offering its customers a reprieve from merry Muzak for one hour a day saying that their daily “hour of silence” was a big hit with customers in testing phases earlier this month.

All fifteen Czech chains of the German-owned supermarket cut the holiday music last week between 6 pm and 7 pm and have now decided to extend their silent shopping hour until Christmas.

The decision to extend the silent hour was also due to regular surveys conducted by marketing firm GfK which found that many consumers choose supermarkets based on noise factor, a quality that ranked higher in importance than a shop’s selection of goods.

A single irate post turned up on the Globus Facebook page in response to the silent hour—the commenter slammed the store for being anti-Christmas traditions; Hobíková says the accusation is unfounded, the company simply wants to please customers who don’t want to listen to music while shopping.

A survey conducted by company Soundtrack Your Brand from the end of November, found that 56 percent of British and US customers don’t mind Christmas music while 17 percent find it unpleasant.

According to the poll, the most annoying thing about holiday music is the repetition of the same songs.