PlayNetwork
Open-knowledge reference entry

PlayNetwork, Inc. is a provider of in-store music and entertainment for retail, restaurant, and hospitality environments. In September 2021, four years after merging with the company, TouchTunes sold PlayNetwork to Mood Media.
History
The company was founded by Kevin Robell in 1996. As a music programmer for the Tom Selleck-owned nightclub Black Orchid in Honolulu, HI during the 80s, Kevin noticed "the synergetic relationship between customers, music, and their environment"; He went on to establish PlayNetwork in Seattle with brother Gordon Robell as a digital music provider for businesses.
In 1996, Adam Brotman, who was a consultant to Kevin Robell, became CEO. Adam went on to become Starbucks’ Chief Digital Officer in 2009.
In 1998, PlayNetwork began a partnership with Starbucks to provide digital music systems and service to over 1,800 retail locations in North America. By 2001, the company was providing services to more than 3,500 international locations.
In 2003, PlayNetwork is named one of the Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies.
“PlayNetwork” enters the record as open-knowledge reference entry. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what PlayNetwork, Open-knowledge and entry can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7202947. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2021, 1996, 2009 and 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “PlayNetwork” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.