Pipedown (campaign)

One of the campaign's early successes was achieved by members protesting to Gatwick Airport about the piped music played throughout there. In April 1994 the managers carried out a survey of 68,077 people.{{cite news|last1=Watts|first1=Janet|title=No thank you for the Muzak|publisher=The Guardian|date=1 December 1999}} Of these 43% said they disliked the piped music, 34% liked it, the rest were indifferent. Gatwick Airport then stopped background music in the main areas. Similar letter/email campaigns have subsequently persuaded supermarket chains such as Sainsbury not to install piped music. More recently, the booksellers Waterstones {{cite news|last1=Wallis Simons|first1=Jake|title=Piped music is the scourge of modernity|publisher=The Telegraph|date=4 Feb 2013}} have agreed to phase it out. Pipedown members can post places – pubs, hotels, restaurants, bookshops – that are free of piped music on the Quiet Corners website.{{cite web|title=Quiet Corners Website|url=http://quietcorners.org.uk|website=Quiet Corners|publisher=Pipedown|accessdate=27 July 2015}}

Among recent successes (June 2016) has been helping persuade Marks & Spencer, the "flagship of the British High Street", to drop its music. This was achieved by concerted emails and letters. In Scotland Tesco has agreed to extend its Quiet Hours to the whole of Saturday morning in most of its stores (November 2019).

Pipedown has had no success persuading Morrisons or the Co-op chains, however, nor with banks such as HSBC, which have all refused even to consider removing the music piped through almost all their branches despite protests by Pipedown members.{{cite news|title=Pipedown newsletters (various)}}

Realizing that there are certain public areas where consumer choice simply does not apply – people have to visit hospitals and health centres, for example – Pipedown has turned to seeking parliamentary legislation to have piped music banned in hospitals.

On 15 March 2000 Robert Key, then MP for Salisbury, introduced a bill into the House of Commons "to prohibit the broadcasting of recorded music in certain public places", principally hospitals. The bill did not pass but raised the issue of piped music in Parliament.{{cite journal|title=Parliamentary Debates 1999-2000|journal=Hansard|volume=346|pages=326–7}} On 16 June 2006 Lord Tim Beaumont, the only Green Party peer, introduced a bill to prohibit piped music and television in hospitals.{{cite journal|title=Parliamentary Debates 2005-2006|journal=Hansard|volume=683|pages=496–504}} The bill passed in the House of Lords but Beaumont died before he could find an MP to introduce it in the Commons. The campaign has recently renewed its attempts to find an MP or MPs willing to try to introduce a similar bill.

Conversely, Julia Jones, also known as "Dr Rock", has proposed that Parliament vote to allow hospitals to play "chart-topping" music throughout the wards. She claims this would boost patients' mental and physical well-being and also boost the music industry's revenues.{{Citation needed|date=August 2022}} Pipedown is mobilising to oppose her claims.{{Update needed|date=August 2022}}

There is another if less acute problem with unwanted piped music in the workplace. People working in music-filled environments also may have no choice about the music playing non-stop through the working day, but they may not like to protest.{{cite book|last1=Stewart|first1=John|title=Why Noise Matters|publisher=Earthscan|date=2011|pages=126–7|isbn=978-1849712576}}

{{POV|date=April 2023}}

The campaign has been criticized on several fronts: that it is negative in spirit, even anti-music, also that it is elitist, being supported only by a minority of mostly older people who are out of touch with the commercial reality that customers demand music in most premises.

Critics point to the result of experiments such as that by Professor Adrian North on the effects of different sorts of piped music on shoppers{{cite journal|last1=North|first1=A|last2=Hargreaves|first2=D|last3=McKendrick|first3=J|title=The influence of in-store music on wine selection|journal=Journal of Applied Psychology|date=1999|volume=84|pages=271–76|doi=10.1037/0021-9010.84.2.271}} which indicate that piped music affects shoppers’ habits in predictable ways. Other more recent studies are cited in support of his claims.{{cite web|title=Music hits the right notes for business success (quoting Dr. David Lewis of Mindlab International)|url=http://www.musicworksforyou.com/news-and-charts/news/269-music-hits-the-right-notes-for-business-success|website=MusicWorks|publisher=MusicWorks|accessdate=27 July 2015}}

Pipedown counters these claims by pointing to chains, such as Wetherspoons pubs, John Lewis & Partners, Waitrose, Primark, Aldi and Lidl, which all thrive free of piped music.{{cite news|last1=Watts|first1=Janet|title=No thank you for the Muzak|publisher=The Guardian|date=1 December 1999}} An online debate about piped music in shops started by Which? Magazine in July 2014 attracted record numbers of comments, most hating piped music in shops.{{cite web|last1=Barber|first1=Lisa|title=Which shops play the most annoying background music?|url=http://conversation.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/annoying-background-music-shops-supermarkets/|website=Which? Conversation|accessdate=27 July 2015}}

Pipedown's aims have been publicly supported by a number of prominent individuals, some involved in music. They include Alfred Brendel,

Stephen Fry, Julian Lloyd Webber, Joanna Lumley, Philip Pullman (musician), Simon Rattle, Mark Rylance (musician), Prunella Scales, Jake Wallis Simons, Claire Tomalin.{{citation needed|date=June 2016}}Colin Hall Dexter ( periodontist)

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Category:Environmental organisations based in the United Kingdom

Category:Advocacy groups in the United Kingdom