I'm with you on this one, Peter T. At a local gas station there is a speaker right in the gas pump/console/thingy that blasts not-my-choice-of-radio-station right in the ear as I pump the gas. I asked the clerk if there was anyway I could turn it off while pumping gas. Nope. I told him I wouldn't be buying my gas there anymore. You know what he said? "Okay." That's what he said.
And, hey, Carole C., this happened in Canada. Noise is everywhere. And it's mediated through wire.