Why Media?

Robert Levine wrote:

“It does appear that self-producing recordings was not viewed as a success institutionally, given that it was not continued. Given that the recordings were musically and technically of very high quality (at judging by the ones I’ve heard), what lessons can be learned from that lack of success?”

Arch Media (the company formed by the SLSO to carry out SLSO media activity) suffered the fate of any under-capitalized company without a working distribution system attempting to sell a product for which there is low demand. It was unable to generate the capital from selling product necessary to continue making product. The lesson learned was that selling recordings that way will not generate enough capital to make the venture self sustaining.

The companies that can stay in business are able to do so because the cost to the company for product is proportional to the anticipated demand for the product, and the sales data for symphony orchestra recordings is abysmally low. Since the single largest cost to record a symphony orchestra is the labor cost, the companies that are surviving are the companies that do not pay more than a low flat fee (Naxxos) or that do not pay any fee (Telarc). Some American symphony orchestras have decided it is in their best artistic and/or marketing interest to subsidize the labor costs for producing recordings, either directly or indirectly. Other orchestras have decided it is not in their best interests to do so or are simply unable to subsidize the labor costs.

The reader might then draw the conclusion that, if American symphony musicians simply lowered their rates for media work, we would see more recordings by American orchestras. I submit it is not that simple, and the proof is that there are some very fine orchestras outside the United States whose labor costs are lower but who are still not able to find companies willing to pay even their lower labor costs because there are just not enough consumers willing to buy the recordings.