Why Media?

Recording and broadcasting are of significant value to symphonic organizations. These activities are important as a means of adding to the net worth of an organization by enhancing its public profile and reputation, resulting in increased fundraising and ticket sales. Electronic media projects can generate revenue streams for institutions and often result in products of historic and aesthetic value that enrich the world we live in. We know that electronic media activity is of value because industry leaders on both the union and the management side have devoted significant amounts of organizational resources to electronic media projects and related issues at the local and national level. They would not do that if it did not matter.

Our moderator invites us to comment on “the reasons for orchestras to do electronic media and for musicians to make it possible.” In fact, it has always been “possible” to succeed in this arena, even under traditional union agreements. Orchestras such as San Francisco, Cincinnati, and Nashville have found ways to achieve all of the above-mentioned benefits, despite the change in the economic environment that is described in the VPD Introduction, because they know it is important. They have made it an institutional priority. Other orchestras, however, stopped engaging in electronic media activity because they were unwilling to shoulder the labor costs associated with traditional agreements. For those orchestras, the silence became deafening. Under the pressure of that silence some AFM members began to indicate that they were prepared to entertain a different approach because it seemed a reasonable tradeoff for a substantial guaranteed annual income, and because they knew their institutions needed to make recordings and to be heard on radio and television. It was time to end the standoff.

A new model for recording has emerged from this dynamic. It is different both economically and artistically from the traditional “session” model. Rather than making recordings in dedicated sessions that take place outside of the live performance schedule, the new model allows orchestras to roll tape during concerts, eliminating the need to pay for the extra time required for session recording. This new model is the basis for agreements between the AFM and symphony managers covering the production of CDs and the production of material for digital streaming and downloading. It is to be hoped that these industry level discussions will continue into other forms of electronic media so that the AFM’s dual objectives of facilitating recording and achieving fair compensation for its symphonic members can be achieved.