1940

Automatic Hostess – Early Music Transmission via Telephone Lines.

In the United States, the “Automatic Hostess” system became one of the most unusual innovations in the history of music machines. In this system, records were played in a central location and transmitted via telephone lines directly to restaurants, bars, or cafés.

 

The music came from a central playback station containing a large library of records.
When a guest selected a song in a venue, the request was electronically transmitted to the central station.
There, the chosen record was played, and the audio signal was sent via telephone lines to the location.

Inside the venue, a small jukebox unit or speaker system reproduced the transmitted music.
Guests could therefore choose from a very large music catalog without each record being physically present.
This made it possible to provide hundreds of songs to multiple locations simultaneously.

The “Automatic Hostess” service was especially used in restaurants and bars during the 1940s.
It connected multiple venues to a central music library.

Today, this technology is considered an early precursor of modern music distribution systems.
Its principle already resembles today’s digital music streaming services.