Where did music in airplanes come from?

I chose this board since I would guess that most people at the time listened to "beautiful music".

I recently got around to watching Carol Burnett receive the Mark Twain Prize. One of the many great clips from her variety show had her playing a very professional, polite stewardess. At least she was in First Class. Tim Conway was in Coach and got treated like dirt. For example, Carol handed earphones to people so they could listen to music. She sang off-key to Tim.

Perhaps type B or type C carts? They were larger than the A series and held more tape. You could also run them at a slower speed.

R

It took some searching, but I found this entry in Wikipedia about Inflight Entertainment.

Here's a "fair-use" extract about audio entertainment:

In 1985 the first personal audio player was offered to passengers, along with noise cancelling headphones in 1989.

There's a note that there is a citation needed regarding that tidbit of information.

Well, I don't know about music on planes, but how about music on buses? Back in 1941, WDUL went on the air in Duluth, Minnesota, with a 250-watt G.E. FM transmitter...serial number 1...at 44.5 mHz on the old FM band, After the war, it became WEBC-FM at 92.3 mHz with a 65,000 watt signal. For publicity, WEBC arranged with the local transit company to put FM radios on all their buses, tuned of course to their station, with a volume control connected to the throttle; in other words, the faster the engine ran, the louder the sound. The station broadcast solely classical music, apparently to show off FM's higher fidelity.

The experiment was dropped in 1948 amid much resentment from passengers annoyed at being "captive audiences" and "guinea pigs." By 1950, WEBC-FM itself was gone. It would be over 30 years before WEBC again ventured into FM, buying an existing "beautiful music" station, WGGR, in 1983; changing it to country and putting it on the air as WAVC (now KKCB.)

JeffM said:

WEBC arranged with the local transit company to put FM radios on all their buses, tuned of course to their station, with a volume control connected to the throttle; in other words, the faster the engine ran, the louder the sound.

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Too bad no one thought to do this in "Speed".

in flight

Came from FUNCTIONAL MUSIC INC from Chicago. Played on a 2 in vcr on the jet

vchimpanzee said:

Too bad no one thought to do this in "Speed".

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Now that would've been something with WEBC-FM...imagine a bus careening down the highway at 70 mph blaring Puccini...

Yeah it's 5 MPH over, but my song choice would have been I Can't Drive 55...

R

tjthedjd said:

Came from FUNCTIONAL MUSIC INC from Chicago. Played on a 2 in vcr on the jet

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I'm not sure they had VCRs when that Carol Burnett skit was done.

With all due respect, FACT: 2 inch videotape and the method of multi tracks were in use by the mid-60's. Videotae in common use by the. MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW was syndicated to tv stations by the mid 60's. John Doremus (and a few others) owned the company that provided the tapes for United Airlines. Company called FUNCTIONAL MUSIC INC. located in Chicago. Had BM. top 40, comedy and about 10 other channels. Peace!

In other words, the system used audio tracks recorded on video tape because its width could accommodate many channels running simultaneously, with some kind of "channel selector" being used by the passenger to determine which track he/she wanted to hear. Now that makes sense.