Music on hold (MOH) is the business practice of playing recorded
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
to fill the silence that would be heard by
telephone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...
callers who have been placed
on hold
In telephony, a call may be placed on hold, in which case the connection is not terminated but no verbal communication is possible until the call is removed from hold by the same or another extension on the key telephone system. Music on hold or ...
. It is especially common in situations involving
customer service
Customer service is the assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services. Each industry requires different levels of customer service, but in the end, the idea of a well-performed service is that ...
.
Music on hold is sometimes referred to as phone on hold, message on hold, on hold messaging, or hold music.
Development
Music on hold was created by Alfred Levy, an inventor, factory owner, and entrepreneur. In 1962, Levy discovered a problem with the phone lines at his factory: a loose wire was touching a metal girder on the building. This made the building a giant receiver, so that the audio broadcast signal from a radio station next door would transmit through the loose wire, and could be heard when calls were put on hold. Levy patented his work in 1966. While other advancements have come to change and enhance the technology, it was this initial patent creation that began the evolution for today's music on hold.
Equipment and formats
Most MOH systems are integrated into a telephone system designed for businesses via an
audio jack
A phone connector, also known as phone jack, audio jack, headphone jack or jack plug, is a family of electrical connectors typically used for analog audio signals. A plug, the male connector, is inserted into the jack, the female connecto ...
on the
telephone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...
equipment labeled "MOH". There are also some units with built-in message on hold capabilities and units designed for small businesses without an extensive phone system.
Today, equipment that supports physical media usually plays
CDs
The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Octo ...
. Some older systems may still use
cassette tapes (sometimes employing endless-loops), or
reel-to-reel
Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the ''supply reel'' (or ''feed reel'') containing the tape is plac ...
tape players. In each case, the unit loads the media into a digital memory chip to prevent premature wearing of the mechanical parts.
Equipment that supports virtual media generally plays
MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
files. Several types of units play these files.
USB flash drive
A USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than . Since firs ...
units allow an MP3 file to be received electronically, downloaded to a flash drive and connected to the player.
Ethernet
Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
based remote load units connect via the network to a remote IP address. Phone line based remote load systems allow for a connection via an analog telephone line and dialing the number belonging to the unit. For
VoIP
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...
phone systems, MP3s are loaded without any equipment.
Newer technology allows MP3 files to be downloaded automatically from the internet so that messages (or interesting content in the form of news and weather, amongst many) can be changed daily. The new "online on hold" technology makes the older technology redundant since it requires no additional hardware. All these systems allow analog-to-digital audio storage and playback.
, technology allows productions to be downloaded or streamed via the Internet, or played through a
USB flash drive
A USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than . Since firs ...
.
Modern
wireless telephony
Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...
relies on
lossy
In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data compression methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data size ...
audio codec
An audio codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream (a codec) that encodes or decodes audio. In software, an audio codec is a computer program implementing an algorithm that compresses and decompres ...
s optimized for spoken voice transmissions, which dramatically reduces the necessary bandwidth at the expense of making any non-spoken content, such as music on hold, sound distorted.
Consumer perceptions
A number of studies have been conducted, which highlight consumer perceptions of music on hold, reinforcing its use by businesses to improve standards of call handling.
A survey of more than 2,000 UK consumers commissioned by audio branding specialist
PHMG revealed 70% of consumers are put on hold for more than 50% of their calls. When put on hold, 73% of callers want to hear something other than beeps or silence.
A CNN survey found that 70 percent of callers in the United States who hold the line in silence hang up within 60 seconds. Meanwhile, research by North American Telecom found callers hearing music on hold will stay on the line 30 seconds longer than callers experiencing silence.
Source of music
Radio
The musical source may be as simple as playing a local
radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...
through the MOH jack. This is unlawful without the express permission of the music title and mechanical copyright holders, or their representatives.
* Although radio stations may provide the desired
musical format, there is no control over the specific songs that are played, some of which may be offensive to the callers, or depending on the music played, sound harsh in
monaural
Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduc ...
sound. This kind of system is also vulnerable to interference.
* Radio stations typically do not
license
A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit).
A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
their music for MOH systems. In the United States, the radio broadcaster has no legal right to provide such a license as they, themselves, obtain a usage license from the music title owner for the right to broadcast said music for limited and personal use. As mentioned above, re-broadcasting of a radio program over a phone system calls for licensing and
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
arrangements to be made for the owner of the MOH system.
* Most radio stations (excluding those that are part of
non-commercial educational
A non-commercial educational station (NCE station) is a radio station or television station that does not accept on-air advertisements (TV ads or radio ads), as defined in the United States by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and was or ...
radio networks) will play
commercials
A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...
, which may be offensive or annoying to the caller. Furthermore, it is possible that a
competitor's commercial may be played, which would be counter-productive.
:See ''
Legal aspects
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
''.
Owners of radio stations will usually air their broadcast signal as music on hold, using their main program signal, if there are several. Examples include
RÚV
Ríkisútvarpið (RÚV) (pronounced or ) ( en, 'The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service') is Iceland's national public-service broadcasting organization.
Operating from studios in the country's capital, Reykjavík, as well as regional cent ...
from
Iceland
Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...
using
Rás 1
Rás 1 (; ''Channel 1'') is an Icelandic radio station belonging to and operated by Ríkisútvarpið (RÚV), Iceland's national public service broadcaster. Broadcast throughout Iceland on FM (92.4 and 93.5 MHz in Reykjavík), via satellite ...
as the on-hold music.
Off-the-shelf commercial CDs
Commercial CDs eliminate the problems encountered with radio commercials, and they offer control over the selection of music; they do not, however, grant proper license for MOH use unless users first obtain permission from the song title copyright owner (when the song is not in the "public domain") and the mechanical copyright owner, or bodies that represent them, such as
BMI or
ASCAP
The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...
. (See "Radio," above, for more details.)
Stock MOH CDs (with or without voice-overs)
CDs are available that have been specifically recorded and licensed for MOH systems. These may contain only music, or may include periodic
voice-over
Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique where a voice—that is not part of the narrative (non-Diegetic#Film sound and music, diegetic)—is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, th ...
s with messages such as "Your call is important" or "Please stay on the line". Such off-the-shelf recordings may be generic or may be specific to individual industries, but will not be customized for individual companies.
Custom-designed MOH
In general, custom music on hold is advised to:
#Control content
#Control music genre
#Use the on hold time to sell to a captive audience
#Through a reputable on hold company be fully licensed and legal for on hold playback
#Reduce hang-ups and make the business look more professional
#Control length of programming based on average caller hold-time
CDs (or other MOH formats, such as MP3 files) can be custom-created to suit the particular needs of a business. The announcements can be scripted to emphasize particular attributes of the business such as location, store hours, or special promotions or services. These are typically used for up-selling and cross-selling callers. Companies can either record the messages themselves, or hire a music on hold production company.
Online on hold
A program loaded onto an existing computer and connected to the phone system can allow automatic content updates interspersed with company information.
Streaming MOH
Streaming MOH refers to a live music on hold stream (URL-based delivery) which can also include custom content. Streaming MOH can also refer to a streaming media server, as with
Cisco
Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...
Unified Call Manager, in which case
RTP format is utilized.
Free on-hold programs
Programs available to non-profit organizations at no cost. Very few companies offer absolutely free programs. The programs are available in generic and custom formats, and are delivered at no cost to the requesting organization.
Styles of music
The style of music played by MOH systems depends largely on the type of business offering the service. It is generally best to present music that will not be offensive to the audience, but that would also be of particular interest to the typical caller. A western apparel store may choose to play
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
. A Christian book store may choose to play popular
Christian music
Christian music is music that has been written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life and faith. Common themes of Christian music include praise, worship, penitence, and lament, and its forms vary widely around ...
. A university may choose to play
classical music
Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...
. An athletic ticket office may choose to play the team or school's
fight song
A fight song is a rousing short song associated with a sports team. The term is most common in the United States and Canada. In Australia, Mexico, and New Zealand these songs are called the team anthem, team song, or games song. First associated ...
. Light classics,
smooth jazz
Smooth jazz is a genre of commercially-oriented crossover jazz and easy listening music that became dominant in the mid 1970s to the early 1990s.
History
Smooth jazz is a commercially oriented, crossover jazz which came to prominence in the 19 ...
,
bossa nova
Bossa nova () is a style of samba developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is mainly characterized by a "different beat" that altered the harmonies with the introduction of unconventional chords and an innovativ ...
and
beautiful music
Beautiful music (sometimes abbreviated as BM, B/EZ or BM/EZ for "beautiful music/easy listening") is a mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in North American radio from the late 1950s through the 1980s. Easy listening, elevator musi ...
are common choices, as is fully
synthesized melodic music.
Among the best known due to its default presence on Cisco telephones is "Opus Number One" by Tim Carleton and high-school friend Darrick Deel, who recorded it on a four-track tape recorder in 1989. Deel went on to work for
Cisco
Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...
in building the company's first
VoIP phone
A VoIP phone or IP phone uses voice over IP technologies for placing and transmitting telephone calls over an IP network, such as the Internet. This is in contrast to a standard phone which uses the traditional public switched telephone network ...
. When a need for default on hold music came up, he recalled the track he and Carleton had recorded and reached out to Carleton for approval.
Recent trends
With the application of newer equipment, MoH devices can now interact with the caller. No additional programs are required on the platform, as all the logic is done with the MoH device. This can include services such as 'polling on hold', rating customer service officer anonymously, etc.
The trend toward hosted IP telephony for business phone systems is demanding changes in music on hold message technology.
Legal aspects
Copyright law
In the US, and other countries where
copyright law
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
s are practiced, authors are granted copyright protection on their musical compositions. Such copyright protection has existed since just after the turn of the
20th century
The 20th (twentieth) century began on
January 1, 1901 ( MCMI), and ended on December 31, 2000 ( MM). The 20th century was dominated by significant events that defined the modern era: Spanish flu pandemic, World War I and World War II, nuclear ...
, and most music written before 1900–1910 from impressionism back to baroque and antiquity is said to be "in the
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work
A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
". Use of any said music prior to the creation of these copyright laws may be presumed to be free for use by all, although individual titles may have been later copyrighted through a change in the composition or arrangement. The use of copyrighted music is not for free use in the public domain.
All music written after this period, which is copyrighted under multiple acts of congress, is owned by the author(s) or their assignees. The use of this music is protected and controlled in order that the owner may derive usage income. Specific to telephonic MOH (music-on-hold), the US laws currently protect the copyright owners from unlawful, unpermitted use of their music titles in over-the-phone broadcast.
Any person or business wishing to use current, popular, post 1900–1910, copyrighted music for MOH purposes may only lawfully do so by obtaining permission from the owner. Currently, performance rights societies such as ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC will sell blanket permission to use music titles in their catalog for MOH purposes. for an express annual fee, calculated by size and frequency of usage. Failure to obtain this paid permission is a violation of US copyright laws.
This same copyright protection is also true in the rebroadcast of any radio program. As mentioned earlier, the broadcaster has been assigned a narrow and specific usage license to air copyrighted song titles. This does not include permission to any person or business to re-broadcast that program on telephonic MOH. The broadcaster may not promote such unlawful use and is not an owner who has any lawful right to grant MOH usage permission. They do not hold the ownership of the title and have no right to license use in any way. Those who plug radio broadcast into their telephone MOH without first obtaining paid permission through the owner's agents (ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC) may be in violation of copyright law and may be prosecuted under existing federal laws.
Mechanical copyright
A second copyright exists when it comes to licensing use for telephonic MOH. A piece of music, as mentioned above, is copyrighted and may be licensed for use as a music title and is understood to be a combination of melody, harmony, and, where applicable, lyrics. However, neither radio listeners nor MOH listeners could hear this music unless it was recorded, providing a delivery medium whereby the "music" becomes a "performance". As mentioned elsewhere, in countries such as the US, where said copyright laws are enforced, nearly every recording of a song title holds its own "mechanical copyright".
For most of the 20th century, music was recorded in studios, produced by record company executives, producers, arrangers, and engineers who were hired to deliver the artist's finished recordings for mastering and duplication, for sale on various types of media: 78, 45, and 33 RPM vinyl; reel-to-reel; 8-track tape; cassette; and
compact disc
The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...
. To protect their investment, the record companies obtain a mechanical copyright in order to protect and control the recording with which they derive usage and sales income.
For those still uncertain of the difference between "song title" and "mechanical" copyrights, consider the
Capitol Records
Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...
lawsuit for copyright infringement against Nike some 20 years ago. Nike legally obtained permission to use
the Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
song title "
Revolution
In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
" from the title's owner,
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...
. They used the Capitol Records owned recording of the Beatles' performance, but failed to obtain and pay for permission and use. Capitol Records sued and prevailed because Nike ONLY had a license to use the title and did not have a license to use the mechanical recording.
Therefore, persons or businesses wishing to play music that falls "in the public domain" are still legally required to obtain permission to use the mechanical recording of this music, from the mechanical copyright holder. Where the use is of copyrighted music, the same applies. In all cases, before a song title may be broadcast on a telephone MOH, said use must be approved and licensed from BOTH the "song title" copyright owner (if it is NOT in public domain) and the "mechanical" copyright owner.
Enforcement
It is generally known within the on-hold industry that some performance rights societies, with regional offices and staff, both monitor and prosecute persons and businesses that infringe on the copyright of title holders in their libraries.
ASCAP
The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...
and
BMI are both aggressive about this, from time to time. It is not known whether any record companies are currently or actively monitoring and prosecuting violators of their mechanical license.
See also
Genres
*
Background music
Background music (British English: piped music) is a mode of musical performance in which the music is not intended to be a primary focus of potential listeners, but its content, character, and volume level are deliberately chosen to affect behav ...
*
Elevator music
Elevator music (also known as Muzak, piped music, or lift music) is a type of background music played in rooms where many people come together (that is, with no intention whatsoever to listen to music), and during telephone calls when placed on ...
Notable companies
As of 2010, the music-on-hold/message-on-hold business was a 100+ million dollar industry with more than 300 different vendors to choose from producing custom content amounting to less than $1m in sales per company—including various manufacturers of specific-duty, message-on-hold devices.
*
Muzak Corporation
*
Grace Digital
Grace Digital Inc is a consumer electronics company based in San Diego, with research and development locations in Cambridge, England; Taipei, Taiwan; and Seoul, Korea. It was founded in 2007 by James D. Palmer and Greg Fadul. The company’s mai ...
*
PH Media Group
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Music On Hold
Customer service
Music industry