Muzak (brand)
Muzak ™ had been a brand name since 1954 of Muzak Holdings LLC, a US company founded in 1934 that was mainly known for its everyday music (e.g. music for retail stores). Mood Media took over Muzak in 2011 and has not used the Muzak brand name since 2013.
history
The American General George Owen Squier was head of the American intelligence corps during World War I. He was very interested in the possible uses of the then newly emerging communication media telephone and radio and received several patents on inventions in the field of wired signal transmission. In 1922, the North American Company acquired some of his patents and founded Wired Radio , which broadcast music to private households by cable - as an advantageous alternative to the radio sets, which were still problematic at the time. However, the quality of radio technology improved rapidly and threatened the business model.
1934 Squire named the company Wired Radio in Muzak Inc. to and now concentrated its offer to business customers. The name Muzak is a combination of music and Kodak invented by Squier - Squier admired the then emerging company Kodak . In 1935 the successful orchestra leader Ben Selvin was hired as a music producer.
| Muzak's customer structure in the USA in 1966 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Facility | percent | |||
| Jobs | 42% | |||
| Retail stores | 23% | |||
| Hotels | 15% | |||
| Restaurants | 7% | |||
| Supermarkets | 5% | |||
| Other | 8th % | |||
| Customers of the Muzak company according to areas of application (1966) | ||||
The re-establishment as Muzak Inc. took place at a time of great technical innovations. The technology euphoria at the time also included the idea, associated with the catchphrase social engineering , that it was possible to optimize the behavior of people in society or in organizations, for example the behavior of employees and customers. In the 1950s and 1960s, Muzak tried to scientifically substantiate the positive effects of background music. Regardless of this, the company concept was successful for decades.
Muzak opened its first foreign branches in Canada , Mexico and Japan . In Europe, the group first set up a branch in England and then a branch in Brussels in order to develop the continent from there. The concept was introduced in Germany in 1961.
In 1995 Muzak Europe BV was created as a European merger between Muzak and the Dutch company Alcas. Alcas (founded 1980) specialized in the production and rental of cassettes and CDs in the Benelux countries, Germany and Spain. Alcas Muzak became the market leader for department store music in Europe (as of 2008). On October 31, 2008, Alcas Muzak was taken over by Mood Media Group SA, headquartered in Luxembourg, through a merger.
After bankruptcy in 2009, Muzak Holdings was taken over by Mood Media Corporation in 2011. At that time, Muzak Inc. was providing sound to around 300,000 rooms in the USA, while Mood Media was supplying music to 117,000 rooms in Europe. In 2013 the new owner announced that they would discontinue the brand name Muzak .
Term for background music
Since the Muzak company dominated the market for decades, muzak became a term in English for background music in public and commercial environments, for example in department stores , hotels and elevators in the 1970s . This “department store music” or “elevator music” should cheer the listener and create a relaxed atmosphere. The term Muzak has also entered German technical jargon.
Web links
- Anika Lampe: Building a better consumerism . ( Memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ; PDF) University of Lüneburg , WS05 / 06
Individual evidence
- ↑ The malls are alive with the sound of Muzak . The Guardian , Feb. 13, 2013; accessed on March 6, 2019
- ^ Online Etymology Dictionary: Muzak
- ↑ Background Music Today: How Industry lives with it (PDF) Coin Machine News, June 18, 1966.
- ↑ Music sprinkling: Muzak sounds softly . In: Der Spiegel . No. 21 , 1961 ( online ).
- ↑ Eckart Granitza: Seduction to Consumption . In: Die Welt , April 12, 2008
- ↑ Federal Gazette , October 31, 2008
- ^ Muzak, Background Music to Life, to Lose Its Name . In: New York Times , February 4, 2013
- ↑ Muzak . Duden online