![Muzak truck](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Muzak_truck.jpg)
Muzak is an American brand of
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 ...
played in retail stores and other public establishments. The name has been in use since 1934, and has been owned by a division or subsidiary of one or another company ever since. In 1981,
Westinghouse bought the company and ran it until selling it to the Fields Company of Chicago, publishers of the ''
Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'', on September 8, 1986.
Formerly owned by Muzak Holdings, the brand was purchased in 2011 by
Mood Media
Mood Media Corporation is an international in-store provider of music, digital signage, hold music, on-hold messaging, scent, integrated audio/video, and interactive mobile marketing products. It was founded in 2004, and is based in Austin, Texa ...
in a deal worth
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
345 million.
Muzak was based in various Seattle, Washington locations from 1986 to 1999, after which it moved its headquarters to South Carolina in 2000.
The word ''Muzak'' has been a
registered trademark
The registered trademark symbol, , is a typographic symbol that provides notice that the preceding word or symbol is a trademark or service mark that has been registered with a national trademark office. A trademark is a symbol, word, or word ...
since December 21, 1954, of Muzak LLC.
In the United States, due in part to the company’s market dominance, ''Muzak'' has come to be used to refer to most forms of background music, regardless of source.
It may also be referred to as "elevator music" or "lift music". Though Muzak Holdings was for many years the best-known supplier of background music, and is commonly associated with elevator music, the company itself did not supply music to elevators. Since 1997, Muzak has used original artists for its music, except on its Environmental channel.
History
Inventor
Major General George Owen Squier, credited with inventing telephone carrier
multiplexing
In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...
in 1910, developed the original technical basis for Muzak.
He was granted several US
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
s in the 1920s
[ related to transmission of information signals, among them a system for the transmission and distribution of signals over electrical lines.]
Squier recognized the potential for this technology to be used to deliver music to listeners without the use of radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...
,[ which at the time was in early state and required fussy and expensive equipment. Early successful tests were performed, delivering music to customers on New York's ]Staten Island
Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...
via their electrical wires.
In 1922, the rights to Squier's patents were acquired by the North American Company
The North American Company was a holding company incorporated in New Jersey on June 14, 1890, and controlled by Henry Villard, to succeed to the assets and property of the Oregon and Transcontinental Company. It owned public utilities and public ...
utility conglomerate, which created the firm Wired Radio, Inc. to deliver music to their customers, charging them for music on their electric bill. By the 1930s radio had made great advances, and households began listening to broadcasts received via the airwaves for free, supported by advertising.
Focus on mercantile environment (1935–1950)
Squier remained involved in the project, but as the home market became eclipsed by radio in 1934 he changed the company's focus to delivering music to commercial clients. Intrigued by the made-up word ''Kodak
The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
'' used as a trademark, he took the first syllable from "music" and added "''ak''" from "''Kodak''" to create ''Muzak,'' which became the company's new name.
In 1937, the Muzak division was purchased from the North American Company by Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Di ...
, which expanded it into other cities. It was bought by entrepreneur William Benton who wanted to introduce Muzak into new markets like barbershops and doctors' offices. While Muzak had initially produced tens of thousands of original artist recordings by the top performers of the late 1930s and 1940s, their new strategy required a different sound.
Stimulus progression (1950–1960)
The company began customizing the pace and style of the music provided throughout the workday in an effort to maintain productivity. The music was programmed in 15-minute blocks, gradually getting faster in tempo and louder and brassier in instrumentation, to encourage workers to speed up their pace. Following the completion of a 15-minute segment, the music would fall silent for 15 minutes. This was partly done for technical reasons, but company-funded research also showed that alternating music with silence limited listener fatigue
Listener fatigue (also known as listening fatigue or ear fatigue) is a phenomenon that occurs after prolonged exposure to an auditory stimulus. Symptoms include tiredness, discomfort, pain, and loss of sensitivity. Listener fatigue is not a clini ...
, and made the "stimulus" effect of Stimulus Progression more effective.
During this period, Muzak began recording their own "orchestra"actually a number of orchestras in studios around the country, sometimes in other countries as wellcomposed of top local studio musicians. This allowed them to control all aspects of the music for insertion into specific slots in the Stimulus Progression programs.
In the 1950s, it gradually became public knowledge that Muzak was using music to manipulate behavior. There were accusations of brainwashing
Brainwashing (also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and forced re-education) is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Brainwash ...
, and court challenges. However, its popularity remained high through the mid-1960s. President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
was the first president to pump Muzak into the West Wing
The West Wing of the White House houses the offices of the president of the United States. The West Wing contains the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, the Situation Room, and the Roosevelt Room.
The West Wing's four floors contain offices for ...
, and Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
owned the Muzak franchise in Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...
. NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
reportedly used Muzak in many of its space missions to soothe astronauts and occupy periods of inactivity.
Original artist programming (1960–1980)
With the rise in youth culture Youth culture refers to the societal norms of children, adolescents, and young adults. Specifically, it comprises the processes and symbolic systems that are shared by the youth and are distinct from those of adults in the community.
An emphasis ...
and the growing influence of the baby boomer
Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the Western demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964, during the mid-20th century baby boom. T ...
generation in the 1960s and 1970s, Muzak's popularity declined. It began losing market share to new "foreground music" companies, such as AEI Music Network Inc.
DMX, A Mood Media company, is a "Multi-sensory" branding agency based in Austin, Texas. DMX also provides music for cable television, cable and satellite television, satellite television networks worldwide, including DSTV in Africa. It was the ...
and Yesco, that offered so-called "original artist music programming." Rather than using orchestral re-recordings as Muzak had for its Stimulus Progression program, they licensed original recordings, and included vocal music. They also differed many styles, from rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
and pop to Spanish-language
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...
programming (for Mexican restaurants), jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
, blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
and classical, as well as the traditional "easy listening
Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, n ...
." Foreground music markets included restaurants, fashion stores, retail outlets, malls, dental offices, airlines and public spaces.
Muzak merged with Yesco in September 1986. When Muzak began programming original artists in 1984, it was after merging with Yesco, and the programming was done by Yesco. This necessitated abandonment of the Stimulus Progression concept.
A small contingent of Muzak's business continued to provide their trademarked background music sound where it remained popular, particularly in Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
.
New business model
During this time Muzak became a franchise
Franchise may refer to:
Business and law
* Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees
* Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...
operation, with local offices each purchasing individual rights to the music, delivery technology, and brand name for their geographic areas. The company changed hands several times, becoming a division of the Field Corporation in the mid-1980s.
Through the 1980s and 1990s, Muzak moved away from the "elevator music" approach and instead began to offer multiple specialized channels of popular music. Muzak pioneered "audio architecture", a process of designing custom music playlists for specific customers.
Even with the changes in format, rocker Ted Nugent
Theodore Anthony Nugent (; born December 13, 1948) is an American rock musician and activist. He initially gained fame as the lead guitarist and occasional lead vocalist of The Amboy Dukes, a band formed in 1963 that played psychedelic rock an ...
used Muzak as an icon of everything "uncool" about music. In 1986, he publicly made a $10 million bid to purchase the company with the stated intent of shutting it down. "Muzak is an evil force in today's society, causing people to lapse into uncontrollable fits of blandness," Nugent said. "It's been responsible for ruining some of the best minds of our generation." His bid was refused by Muzak's then-owner, the Westinghouse Electric Corporation
The Westinghouse Electric Corporation was an American manufacturing company founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse. It was originally named "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company" and was renamed "Westinghouse Electric Corporation" in ...
.
By the late 1990s, the Muzak corporation had largely rebranded itself. As of 2010, Muzak distributed 3 million commercially available original artist songs. It offered almost 100 channels of music via satellite or IP delivery, in addition to completely custom music programs tailored to their customers' needs.
According to EchoStar
EchoStar Corporation is an American company, a worldwide provider of satellite communication and Internet services through its Hughes Network Systems and EchoStar Satellite Services business segments. EchoStar is based out of unincorporated Arapa ...
, one of Muzak's distribution providers, Muzak's business music service was broadcast on rented bandwidth from EchoStar VII
EchoStar VII is an American geostationary communications satellite which is operated by EchoStar. It is positioned in geostationary orbit at a longitude of 119° West, from where it is used to provide high-definition television direct-broadcast sa ...
, in geostationary orbit
A geostationary orbit, also referred to as a geosynchronous equatorial orbit''Geostationary orbit'' and ''Geosynchronous (equatorial) orbit'' are used somewhat interchangeably in sources. (GEO), is a circular geosynchronous orbit in altitud ...
at 119 degrees west longitude. Other rented bandwidth included an analog service on Galaxy 3C
Galaxy 3C (or Galaxy 13) is a communications satellite operated by PanAmSat from 2000 to 2006, and by Intelsat from 2006 to today. It spent most of its operational life at an orbital location of 95° W. Galaxy 3C was launched on June 15, 2002, with ...
and a digital service on SES-3
SES-3 is a communications satellite operated by SES World Skies, then by SES S.A.
Spacecraft
SES-3 was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC), and is based on the Star-2.4 satellite bus. It is equipped with 24 C-band, and 24 Ku-band tr ...
.
On April 12, 2007, Muzak Holdings, LLC announced to its employees that it might merge with DMX Music
DMX, A Mood Media company, is a "Multi-sensory" branding agency based in Austin, Texas. DMX also provides music for cable and satellite television networks worldwide, including DSTV in Africa. It was the first company to offer music by satelli ...
. This merger was approved by the Department of Justice
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a v ...
Antitrust
Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...
Division one year later. However, by April 2009, the deal appeared to have faltered.
On January 23, 2009, a spokesperson said Muzak was attempting to restructure its debt, and filing for bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...
was one of several options. The company had ample cash but had large amounts of debt coming due in the midst of a difficult economic climate.
Bankruptcy
On February 10, 2009, Muzak Holdings LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection
Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, wheth ...
. Kirkland & Ellis
Kirkland & Ellis LLP is an American multinational law firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1909, Kirkland & Ellis is the largest law firm in the world by revenue and the seventh-largest by number of attorneys, and was the first la ...
was hired as the company's bankruptcy law firm. Moelis & Company
Moelis & Company is a global investment bank that provides financial advisory services to corporations, governments, and financial sponsors. The firm advises on strategic decisions such as mergers and acquisitions, recapitalizations and restruct ...
served as the financial adviser.
On September 10, 2009, Muzak said it had filed a reorganization plan which would cut the company's debt by more than 50%. The plan would pay all banks everything they were owed in some form and would give high-ranking unsecured creditors ownership in the reorganized company. Other creditors would receive warrants
Warrant may refer to:
* Warrant (law), a form of specific authorization
** Arrest warrant, authorizing the arrest and detention of an individual
** Search warrant, a court order issued that authorizes law enforcement to conduct a search for eviden ...
to buy stock. The company said an "overwhelming majority" of unsecured creditors supported the plan.
History of Muzak Holdings LLC
On January 12, 2010, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court
United States bankruptcy courts are courts created under Article I of the United States Constitution. The current system of bankruptcy courts was created by the United States Congress in 1978, effective April 1, 1984. United States bankruptcy c ...
approved the plan to reduce Muzak's debt by more than half, allowing Muzak to officially emerge from bankruptcy.
Following bankruptcy, the company announced an initiative to realign its corporate structure into three specialized business units: Muzak Media; Touch, a Muzak Co.; and Muzak Systems. These units will focus on content acquisition, Sensory Branding, and new delivery platform technology.
In March 2011, Mood Media agreed to purchase Muzak Holdings for $345 million. On February 5, 2013, Mood Media announced it was retiring the name 'Muzak' as part of its integration plans.
Mood Media
Founded in 2004, Mood Media
Mood Media Corporation is an international in-store provider of music, digital signage, hold music, on-hold messaging, scent, integrated audio/video, and interactive mobile marketing products. It was founded in 2004, and is based in Austin, Texa ...
had a market capitalization of about $380 million as of 2011. In March 2011, Mood Media agreed to purchase Muzak Holdings for $345 million. Although Muzak first appeared in 1934, it had its largest impact in the 1960s and 1970s. In 2013, Mood Media announced it would be consolidating its services under the name Mood, ceasing to use the Muzak brand name. Muzak provided background music to over 300,000 US locations and made most of its money through multi-year contracts. In 2013, the company provided on-hold messaging and video programming, although piped music remained its forte. Mood hoped to use Muzak's US footprint to introduce more digital services. In May 2017, Mood Media filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in an attempt to restructure their debt. The following month the company was acquired by Apollo Global Management
Apollo Global Management, Inc. is an American global private-equity firm. It provides investment management and invests in credit, private equity, and real assets. As of March 31, 2022, the company had $512 billion of assets under management, ...
and GSO Capital Partners
Blackstone Credit, formerly known as GSO Capital Partners is an American hedge fund and the credit investment arm of The Blackstone Group. GSO is one of the largest credit-oriented alternative asset managers in the world and a major participant ...
. In January 2021 Mood Media was acquired by Vector Capital, a private equity firm specializing in investments in technology businesses.
See also
* Applied Media Technologies Corporation
Applied Media Technologies Corporation (AMTC) is a Tampa, Florida-based provider of commercial sound equipment, "on hold" messaging to US and Canadian businesses under the brand name TelAdvantage, and background music for businesses as a partne ...
* Associated-Rediffusion
Associated-Rediffusion, later Rediffusion London, was the British ITV franchise holder for London and parts of the surrounding counties, on weekdays between 22 September 1955 and 29 July 1968. It was the first ITA franchisee to go on air, ...
* 3M Cantata 700
The Cantata 700 is a commercial background music system and corresponding cartridge format developed by 3M that was in common use from 1965 until the 1990s.
Cartridge
The nearly square-shaped cartridges are among the largest built. More than ...
* InStore Broadcasting Network
InStore Audio Network (also known as ISAN) is a Utah-based retail media provider of narrowcast in-store music, in-store video content and audio advertising for delivery within supermarkets and drugstores. InStore Audio Network's music programmin ...
* Music Choice
Music Choice (abbreviated as MC) is an American television music service that digitally broadcasts audio-based music channels and video-related content to cable television providers in the United States. Music Choice reaches 65 million househol ...
* Seeburg 1000
The Seeburg 1000 Background Music System is a phonograph designed and built by the Seeburg Corporation to play background music from special 16 RPM vinyl records in offices, restaurants, retail businesses, factories and similar locations. Seeburg p ...
* Trusonic
Mood Media North America (formerly consisting of Muzak, LLC, DMX and Trusonic) is a commercial music company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Mood Media Corporation. Founded in 1999 as a small business unit (SBU) of the now defunct MP3.com, Truson ...
References
External links
*
*
*
Muzak's own "Environmental" channel sample, the original Elevator Music
->
*Lanza, Joseph
Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak
University of Michigan Press
The University of Michigan Press is part of Michigan Publishing at the University of Michigan Library. It publishes 170 new titles each year in the humanities and social sciences. Titles from the press have earned numerous awards, including L ...
,
Muzak
Article about elevator music
The Soundtrack of Your Life
New Yorker Article
Music, Muzak, Noise, Silence and Thought
{{Authority control
Entertainment companies established in 1934
Products introduced in 1934
1937 mergers and acquisitions
1981 mergers and acquisitions
1986 mergers and acquisitions
2011 mergers and acquisitions
Brands that became generic
Easy listening music
Industrial music services
Music companies of the United States
Recorded music
Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009