Muzak
Muzak is an American brand of background music played in retail stores and other public establishments owned by Mood Media. The name ''Muzak'', a blend of music and the popular camera brand name Kodak, has been in use since 1934 and has been owned by various companies. The word ''Muzak'' has been a registered trademark of Muzak LLC since December 21, 1954. In 1981, Westinghouse bought the company and ran it until selling it to the Fields Company of Chicago, publishers of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'', on September 8, 1986. Muzak was based in various Seattle, Washington, locations from 1986 to 1999, after which it moved its headquarters to outside Charlotte in 2000. Formerly owned by Muzak Holdings, the brand was purchased in 2011 by Mood Media in a deal worth US$345 million. In the United States, due in part to the market dominance of Muzak Holdings, ''Muzak'' came to be used to refer to most forms of background music, regardless of source. The term is also commonly use ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Muzak Truck
Muzak is an American brand of background music played in retail stores and other public establishments owned by Mood Media. The name ''Muzak'', a blend of music and the popular camera brand name Kodak, has been in use since 1934 and has been owned by various companies. The word ''Muzak'' has been a registered trademark of Muzak LLC since December 21, 1954. In 1981, Westinghouse bought the company and ran it until selling it to the Fields Company of Chicago, publishers of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'', on September 8, 1986. Muzak was based in various Seattle, Washington, locations from 1986 to 1999, after which it moved its headquarters to outside Charlotte in 2000. Formerly owned by Muzak Holdings, the brand was purchased in 2011 by Mood Media in a deal worth US$345 million. In the United States, due in part to the market dominance of Muzak Holdings, ''Muzak'' came to be used to refer to most forms of background music, regardless of source. The term is also commonly used in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 behavioral and emotional responses in humans such as concentration, relaxation, distraction, and excitement. Listeners are uniquely subject to background music with no control over its volume and content. The range of responses created are of great variety, and even opposite, depending on numerous factors such as, setting, culture, audience, and even time of day. Background music is commonly played where there is no audience at all, such as empty hallways, restrooms and fitting rooms. It is also used in artificial space, such as music played while on hold during a telephone call, and virtual space, as in the ambient sounds or thematic music in video games. It is typically played at low volumes from multiple small speakers distributing the musi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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, Texas. The company provides services to a variety of retailers and other business verticals such as restaurant, financial, healthcare, hospitality and QSR. Mood Media Corporation has expanded its product offerings through acquisitions of Somerset Entertainment in Canada, BIS Group in Europe, and Trusonic, AEI Music Network Inc., Muzak, DMX, Technomedia, and GoConvergence in the United States. Malcolm McRoberts is the CEO of Mood Media Corporation. Company history Mood Media Corporation was founded in 2004, as Fluid Music Canada. It held an initial public offering in June 2008 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The company offered stock at $2 per share, which subsequently raised $27 million. The company rebranded itself as Mood Media in June ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Owen Squier
George Owen Squier (March 21, 1865 – March 24, 1934) was an American general, scientist, and inventor best known for inventing and popularizing what today is called Muzak. Life and military career Squier was born in Dryden, Michigan. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in the Class of 1887. Among his classmates who also became general officers were Frank Herman Albright, Marcus Daniel Cronin, Alexander Lucian Dade, James Theodore Dean, Charles S. Farnsworth, George Washington Gatchell, Charles Gerhardt, Herman Hall, Thomas Grafton Hanson, Mark L. Hersey, Ernest Hinds, Michael Joseph Lenihan, Ulysses G. McAlexander, Nathaniel Fish McClure, William C. Rivers, Charles Brewster Wheeler, and Edmund Wittenmyer. In 1893, Squier received a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. He wrote and edited many books and articles on the subject of radio and electricity. An inventor, he and Dartmouth professor Albert Cushing Crehore developed a magneto-opt ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Westinghouse Electric Corporation
The Westinghouse Electric Corporation was an American manufacturing company founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse and headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was originally named "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company" and was renamed "Westinghouse Electric Corporation" in 1945. Through the early and mid-20th century, Westinghouse Electric was a powerhouse in heavy industry, electrical production and distribution, consumer electronics, home appliances and a wide variety of other products. They were a major supplier of generators and steam turbines for most of their history, and was also a major player in the field of nuclear power, starting with the Westinghouse Atom Smasher in 1937. A series of downturns and management missteps in the 1970s and 80s combined with large cash balances led the company to enter the financial services business. Their focus was on mortgages, which suffered significant losses in the late 1980s. In 1992 they announced a major restruct ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Elevator Music
Elevator music (also known as Muzak, piped music, or lift music) is a type of background music played in elevators, in rooms where many people come together for reasons other than listening to music, and during telephone calls when placed on hold. Before the emergence of the Internet, such music was often "piped" to businesses and homes through telephone lines, private networks or targeted radio broadcasting (as in the BBC's '' Music While You Work'', where powerful speakers were set up in factories to make the broadcast audible). There is no specific sound associated with elevator music, but it usually involves simple instrumental themes from "soft" popular music, or "light" classical music being performed by slow strings. This type of music was produced, for instance, by the Mantovani Orchestra, and conductors such as Franck Pourcel and James Last, peaking in popularity around the 1970s. More recent types of elevator music may be computer-generated, with the actual score b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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William Benton (senator)
William Burnett Benton (April 1, 1900 – March 18, 1973) was an American senator from Connecticut (1949–1953) and publisher of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (1943–1973). Early life Benton was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was educated at Shattuck Military Academy, Faribault, Minnesota, and Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota until 1918, at which point he matriculated at Yale University, where he contributed to campus humor magazine '' The Yale Record'' and was admitted to the Zeta Psi fraternity. Advertising and civic life He graduated in 1921 and began work for advertising agencies in New York City and Chicago until 1929, after which he co-founded Benton & Bowles with Chester Bowles in New York. He moved to Norwalk, Connecticut in 1932, and served as the part-time vice president of the University of Chicago from 1937 to 1945. In 1944, he had entered into unsuccessful negotiations with Walt Disney to make six to twelve educational films annually. Pu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Music On Hold
Music on hold (MOH) or hold music is the business practice of playing recorded music to fill the silence that would be heard by telephone callers who have been placed on hold. It is especially common in situations involving customer service. 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 on the telep ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 transport companies and was broken up in 1946, largely to comply with the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. Its headquarters were at 60 Broadway in Manhattan. History In 1889, the New Jersey legislature passed legislation to facilitate the control of other companies by another corporation. This was part of a bid to entice trusts to convert into holding companies and move to New Jersey. It persuaded the Oregon company Oregon and Transcontinental to re-incorporate as a holding company in New Jersey and became the North American Company. When the Dow Jones Industrial Average was created on May 26, 1896, North American's stock was one of the 12 component stocks, but it was replaced on August 26 by U.S. Cordage. On October 1, 1 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Staten Island
Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the adjacent state of New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull and from the rest of New York by New York Bay. With a population of 495,747 in the 2020 United States census, 2020 Census, Staten Island is the least populated New York City borough but the third largest in land area at ; it is also the least densely populated and most suburban borough in the city. A home to the Lenape Native Americans, the island was settled by Dutch colonists in the 17th century. It was one of the 12 original counties of New York state. Staten Island was City of Greater New York, consolidated with New York City in 1898. It was formerly known as the Borough of Richmond until 1975, when its name was changed to Borough of Staten Island. Staten Island has so ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 clinically recognized state, but is a term used by many professionals. The cause for listener fatigue is still not yet fully understood it is thought to be an extension of the quantifiable psychological perception of sound. Common groups at risk of becoming victim to this phenomenon include avid listeners of music and others who listen or work with loud noise on a constant basis, such as musicians, construction workers and military personnel. Causes The exact causes of listener fatigue and the associated pathways and mechanisms are still being studied; some of the popular theories are presented below. Introduction of artifacts in audio material Musicality, especially on the radio, contains musical aspects (timbre, emotional impact, melody) ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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West Wing
The West Wing of the White House is the location of the office space of the president of the United States. The West Wing contains the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room (White House), Cabinet Room, the White House Situation Room, Situation Room, and the Roosevelt Room. The West Wing's three floors include offices for the Vice President of the United States, vice president, the White House Chief of Staff, White House chief of staff, the Counselor to the President, counselor to the president, the Senior Advisor to the President, senior advisor to the president, the White House Press Secretary, White House press secretary, and their support staffs. Adjoining the press secretary's office, in the colonnade between the West Wing and the Executive Residence, is the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, along with workspace for the White House press corps. History Before the construction of the West Wing, presidential staff worked on the western end of the second floor of what is now the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |