Muzak Hits The Skids

The elevator background music company Muzak has filed for bankruptcy, stating that although they had reasonably good revenue, debts from more than a decade ago were forcing them to restructure.

I'm shocked that this company is still around. It's pretty easy to choose an  XM Radio channel to do the same thing (although XM/Serius may file bankruptcy soon as well), and companies like Truesonic and Play Networks have better technical and business models and are hipper too. Word is that the company survives mostly because of very long-term contracts with it's customers.

Muzak's bankruptcy isn't really about their product, as much as many musicians and consumers would like it to be. It's more about the current credit crunch and how difficult it is to refinance debt.  As a result of the bankruptcy, all equity will be wiped out for the shareholders as Muzak restructures in an effort to emerge on the other side with a cleaner balance sheet.

But most of us would still prefer to think it was all about the what they did to the music that pushed the company to the brink.