Musicians engaged to work on television productions are invariably self-employed. You are therefore negotiating (directly or through a specialist music fixer) and paying fees, rather than salary or wages.

The industry agreement which should meet your needs is the Television Agreement negotiated between The Producers’ Alliance for Cinema and Television (PACT) and The Musicians’ Union (MU). (NB: Singers’ terms are governed by the PACT/Equity Agreement.)

This agreement caters for every type of engagement that a producer may need to offer a musician, ranging from a single three-hour session to record a few minutes of incidental

sound-track music for a documentary to the in-vision recording of a symphony concert, from the on-screen performance of a current pop hit to the wind sextet in costume playing at the 18^th-century ball in a costume drama, from archive use of musicians’ performances in retrospective programmes to the incidental appearance of musicians in a news magazine item.

It specifies rates (generally per three-hour session, though there is exceptional provision for one of four hours with a break). These are generally accepted by musicians as the rate, rather than a minimum base for negotiation. It defines the maximum amount of music that may be recorded in each session.