Variety
“There has been a tremendous devaluation of music,” said former Society of Composers and Lyricists president James DiPasquale. “Respect for composers has diminished. Technology has marched forward, and our income has plummeted. At the rank-and-file level, it’s very hard for anyone to make a living.” In response to these rough times the SCL is considering unionization. SCL statistics show that in hourlong TV, composers on average must write twice as much music as they did 30 years ago — hourlongs today require twice as many minutes of music — but the salary drops are astonishing: According to their website, for each score, they’re averaging just 14% of what they did then, adjusted for inflation. In films, it’s even worse, with fees dropping precipitously even as composers must now write more than twice as much music while also absorbing technical costs (engineering, mixing, editing) that were once handled, and paid for, by studio or network personnel.