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Subject: Thirty Five Years of Recorded Announcements
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Date: 16 Aug 90 03:14:38 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 574, Message 1 of 7


This summer marks the 35th anniversary of the first recorded
announcements given over the telephone for other than telephone
company purposes. Likewise, the 'time of day' message is from an
earlier era.

Beginning in 1927, telephone companies began getting tired of people
ringing up the operator to ask 'what time is it?', so they established
special numbers for that purpose. In the beginning, a live person sat
there and announced the time upon request, and there were very few ten
second intervals that *someone* did not dial in asking for it.

The original number for the time of day in New York City was NERVOUS.
A jewelry store in Manhattan sponsored it for many years.  Recorded
messages giving out the weather forecast started in 1950 in
Philadelphia and Cleveland on an experimental basis. It seems a lot of
people had been calling the operator to ask what the temperature was
that day, and the telcos got tired of that also! :)

But for other purposes, recorded announcements began in August, 1955
in Scarsdale, NY when Hitchcock Memorial Church began broadcasting
recorded prayers continuously over a special telephone line installed
for that purpose. By a year later, churches all over the United States
were experimenting with this new technology, offering 'Dial-A-Prayer'
telephone lines. New York's Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church averages
800 calls per hour around the clock on their present system.

About 1958, theatres began using recorded announcements advertising
the pictures and the times they played, however the recorded telephone
message concept was mainly used by churches until the middle sixties.

In 1968, Chicagoan Sherman Skolnik started a recorded message
commentary on the news which ran five minutes in length, was changed
daily, and has continued to this day, 22 years later. In the early
1970's, several non-religious recordings were available, including a
convention and tourist message in Chicago; a 'gay news and events'
recorded message here, and others.

Of course today, there are literally thousands of free recorded
annoucements to hear, to say nothing of the many operating on premium
charge lines (900/976 numbers).

Except for telco weather and time messages, public programming / general
interest recorded announcements began 35 years ago this week. And, it
was just ten years ago that 900 service was started by AT&T, to handle
the calls received in the Carter/Reagan debate in 1980.

Should we celebrate the anniversary?  More than a few people have
gotten rich from telephone recorded announcements, that's for sure!


Patrick Townson