A Dollar A Holler

June 25, 2026

Dollar General has more than 21,000 stores in the US. There are more Dollar General locations than Starbucks or McDonald’s. 75% of Americans live within five miles of a Dollar General. Annually, people visit a Dollar General store 2.7 BILLION times. That is a lot of cume.

The company is building their own version of a retail audio network. It is already in 6,000 stores with plans to expand to 12,000. This is nothing new. Wal-Mart has been doing this for years. 7-11 is also entering this space. The use of audio as a selling medium at the point of purchase is also not new. Radio has been doing this for years.

Image by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels.

However, radio cannot hyper focus on a targeted ad to a specific store. Radio can drive traffic to that location, but it is difficult to accurately track the effectiveness of that particular ad.

The powers that be at Dollar General not only tout the localization possibilities of their network, but they also point out that having music piped into their stores enhances both customer and employee experiences.

They talk about this in a recent episode of The Drum’s “Basket Case” podcast (link below).

Apparently, the company is using AI to select the music. They also claim that employees will have a say in the song selections.

They do not mention anything about personalities (something Wal-Mart radio has). Perhaps this will evolve.

What I found interesting about their approach is that there was no mention of who the architects of this network are. Are real radio people involved? Or is this a bespoke concoction developed by non-audio folks?

One thing is for sure—more and more retailers will create their own in-house “radio” networks. This presents an opportunity to the hundreds of riffed programmers and personalities. There is a wealth of creative, competent, and successful radio professionals on the beach who would welcome an opportunity to build a network like Dollar General’s.

How do we make that connection?

Can radio use this as a marketing tool? (Don’t snicker.) Imagine running a 15 second ad inside a Dollar General inviting shoppers to tune in once they leave the store?

How does radio turn this threat to its share of ear into an opportunity?

It’s certainly worth a conversation.

Here’s the link to the podcast. Its only about ten minutes long: https://www.thedrum.com/news/dollar-general-thinks-retail-media-s-future-is-hiding-in-plain-sight

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