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Muzak:
A Public Radio Commentary
by Bill Hammack
Listen using RealAudio
My wife, Amy, and I are sitting outside our favorite restaurants
waiting to be called for brunch. Now, as we enter, you'll hear
something that G.K. Chesteron, the great British journalist and
grump, called the worst feature of modern life. He called it
"monstrous and ominous", and said it indicated "moral chaos."
That's us. Listen carefully as we enter and you'll hear
Chesterton's nemisis. There it is: A MUZAK version of Simon &
Garfunkel's "Feeling Groovy." Chesterton's "moral chaos" was
music that was piped in while eating at a restaurant. Yet, to me
this is MUZAK to my ears, because it's the work of a fellow
engineer: George Squier.
To invent MUZAK, Squier fused, in the 1920s, long distance
telephone service and radio technology.
He invented a way to broadcast radio signals down a telephone
line, but let the telephone calls still take place - something
called carrier transmission.
To capitalize on his invention Squier created Wired Radio, a
nationwide broadcast of music and public service announcements.
Squier used one central station to create his broadcasts, then
transmitted them via phone lines across the nation to his
stations, which broadcast them locally. He charged customers
eleven cents a day for the service, yet Squier's company nearly
failed.
When he patented his invention, he chose to allow any US citizen
to use it. This let AT&T, which dominated the phone lines, use
the technology to help others compete with Squier's Wired Radio.
To overcome his rivals Squier invented a brand name for his
broadcasts. He combined the word "music" with the most popular
trade name of the time, Kodak, to come up with Muzak (M-U-Z-A-K).
Squier thought of Muzak as a mix of news and dance music, but
when he retired, his successor, a Wall Street banker, changed the
format.
The banker learned that Westinghouse and General Electric used
music to increase their workers output, so he repackaged Muzak to
be piped into factories - and eventually into every nook and
cranny in America. Muzak was even played in the Apollo Thirteen
space module during its time of troubles.
Today Muzak is still around with eighty million listeners. And
what of Major George Squier's method of putting two signals down
a single wire - that carrier transmission?
Well, in addition to the music I hear right now, its also used
today to bring 500 television channels into your house on a
single cable. I'm Bill Hammack.
Copyright 2003 William S. Hammack Enterprises
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