The odd history of on-hold music

We've all been put on hold when we've tried to reach someone. Have you ever thought about the music that plays while you wait?

It’s happened again: before you get a word out, the person or machine who answered the phone at the doctor’s office/tech support/airline/customer service centre slaps you on hold and music starts to play.

In some cases, it’s a local radio station. Other times, it’s something terribly innocuous, generic, and mildly annoying. And I swear those companies that play the same simple tune over and over and over again do that so you’ll just give up and go away. (Apple tech support is a bit different. The last time I called for help, the prompts gave me a choice of the kind of music I could hear while waiting, but that’s unusual.)

The main purpose of on-hold music is simple. If you hear the music, you know you’re still connected and somewhere in the queue. But this wasn’t always the case. Who came up with the idea of on-hold music?

His name was Alfred Levy. Back in 1962, he owned a factory and was having trouble with the phone lines running into the building. Somewhere in the system, a loose wire was touching a metal girder, turning the whole structure into a giant radio antenna that just happened to be tuned to the frequency of a local radio station. This meant that every time someone answered the phone, music leaked through. It was especially noticeable when callers were placed on hold.

Levy was annoyed at first but then realized that this wasn’t such a bad thing after all. It occupied the callers and let them know that they were still connected.

In 1966, he filed a patent on a machine, “Telephone Hold Program System,” that automatically played music for callers anytime they were placed on hold. Every single on-hold phone device in use today is based on that patent. It doesn’t matter if it’s some inoffensive pre-recorded instrumental material or a radio station.

This has revolutionized interactions with customers. I once saw the results of a study that said at least 70 per cent of customers who are subjected to dead silence while on hold will hang up in disgust and frustration within 60 seconds, simply because they think they’ve been disconnected or are being ignored and disrespected. Playing them music — even bad music — is far better than the old way of signaling an active connection, which was usually a beep every 30 seconds or so. Today, most commercial phone line system comes with an “M.O.H.” input. That stands for “Music On Hold.”

After on-hold music became widespread, things escalated in odd directions. In 1989, a 16-year-old Yanni-loving computer nerd named Tim Carleton and his friend, Derek Deel, recorded a six-minute piece on a four-track machine in Carleton’s parents’ garage. It was entitled Opus Number One and incorporated in phone a system built by Cisco (then a start-up) called Call Manager. It made Carleton and Deel stars of the on-hold music world.