MUSIC & INDUSTRY NEWS
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OFF THE RECORD
and New York is the center for much of
In fact, looking for scarcity might be a
the world of audio professionals we can
broadcasting, as well as arguably still being
rewarding employment strategy: An audio
hope for.
the country’s indie music capital.
professional working in Richmond, Virginia earns about the same annually as one in the LA area — both pull in over $82,000 a
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year. The data indicates that there are 0.59
When the data becomes more granular, other locations appear. In the list of metropolitan areas with the highest employment levels in the category, after New York (hourly wage $31.91) and Los Angeles ($39.85), San Francisco appears, at $29.66 per hour, higher than Chicago’s ($20.90) and possibly attributable to a Silicon Valley effect. Nashville finally arrives, though at a measly $16.32 an hour — lower than Boston, Miami
audio engineers for every thousand workers in LA, while that number drops to 0.09 in Richmond, which is perhaps better known as the capital of the Confederacy than for the regional commercial spots that get done there. Dave Matthews and the still somewhat thriving hip-hop scene in nearby Virginia Beach, however, where the Neptunes and a few colleagues have recording studios, likely help boost the numbers.
or even Seattle. On the other hand, the cost of living in Nashville is far less than in any of those other cities, though any boost that gives the numbers is tempered by the fact that there is so much competition for audio jobs there. One location stands out for the
Now that we have this snapshot, what are the takeaways? For starters, there are a lot of people making solid, middle-class salaries in this business, and that’s important: the middle class of anything — a country, a city or an industry — is what creates stability. The health of music production as a career choice isn’t determined by the relative few who hit the equivalent of a lottery jackpot, but by those who manage to pay the rent, put food on the table, pay their kids’ tuition and get to work on time every day. Secondly, in an era of shaky finance in general, the idea that professional audio can offer a steady paycheck could be
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a pragmatic if unsexy selling point. Finally, this data gives us the very human pleasure
You have to do some educated parsing of
of anonymously seeing how we stack up to
the Federal data, simply because Bureau of
our peers. And who doesn’t like comparing
Labour surveys were designed to reflect a
themselves to the next guy?
much broader and more diverse workplace. What audio profession-
Looking for scarcity might be a rewarding employment strategy: An audio professional working in Richmond, VA earns about the same annually as one in the LA area — both pull in over $82,000 a year.
als actually do is itself
This article originally appeared in the July 2012 issue of Sound On Sound magazine and is reprinted with permission. Dan Daley is an experienced
increasingly difficult to
journalist and author who has been covering the
pin down as specifi-
business and technology of the entertainment
cally as the job of, say, a
industry for over 17 years. You can read more of
bank examiner or florist. Does a programmer who
Dan’s Off the Record columns at www.soundonsound.com.
sync’s backing tracks for a live show qualify for inclusion? Finally, the surveys provide a huge caveat: “Estimates do not include self-employed workers.” It’s reasonable to postulate that at least
fact that its hourly wage is lowest of those
half this industry is self-employed. But con-
reported in this section. Orlando, home to
sidering that getting them (and I consider
massive Disney and Universal theme parks
myself one of that cohort) to fill out a survey
(which use tons of audio), offers audio pros
is like trying to herd cats, these government
an average hourly wage of just $15.44.
statistics are the best economic picture of
ISSUE 1
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VOL. I
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