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Comment by gamblor956 | Hacker News Reader

Top writers make significantly more (see, for example, the large paydays for Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Quinta Brunson).

But everyone else makes significantly less. While pay scales have increased on a per-episode basis, TV show seasons are less than half as long as they were before, and streamers don't pay royalties, so absolute pay decreased substantially.

For point of comparison: a friend who worked in the writer's room on a FOX broadcast TV show several years ago (5+ years ago) was able to buy a house with the salary from one season and the royalties for writing a single episode broadcast that season (out of approximately 20ish). She currently works on a streaming show for one of the major streaming services and her salary this year as the head writer for that 10-episode show is less than the royalties for that single broadcast episode, despite millions more viewers watching the streaming show.

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>But everyone else makes significantly less. While pay scales have increased on a per-episode basis, TV show seasons are less than half as long as they were before, and streamers don't pay royalties, so absolute pay decreased substantially.

But if seasons are half as long, can't writers write twice as many seasons, canceling that effect out?

Only if you actually get a gig on another season in that same time.

Writing is a very inconsistent job, and stability is really valuable. A contract that guarantees you for half the time, at the same rate, is a lot more uncertainty.

No, shows actually require more work today. For example, Wednesday, is only 8 episodes but required 8 months of actual production. In comparison, Grey's Anatomy averages over 20 episodes a season (in its heyday, 27 episodes/season) but only required 6 months of production each season. (Writers who are part of the "writing room" are contracted to the show until production ends. They can write film scripts in their free time but can't work in another show's writer's room.)

The problem is that everything these days is heavily serialized, and directors and studios are far more willing to demand last-minute script changes. Because of the nature and extent of serialization, this requires significant amounts of work--often more work than the original writing, because changes have to be propagated throughout the season.

Writers don’t go to production any more. It’s all mini rooms these days.

Which is part of what the strike is about — part of a union’s job is to ensure the next generation is as informed and familiar with the levers of power as the one that came before it. Mini rooms are one example of the tactic studios are using to isolate writers and reduce the union membership (and therefore bargaining power) as significantly as possible.

--- a friend who worked in the writer's room on a FOX broadcast TV show several years ago was able to buy a house with the salary from one season

this seems to make the case that writers were previously overpaid way beyond normal americans, and perhaps salaries are regressing to what average americans make

> ... normal americans

Normal Americans don't generate something that generates many millions of dollars.

And they also don't generally have order of magnitude changes in their earnings from year to year.

Vanishingly few writers have a steady salaried gig at a major broadcast network. I'm happy for this friend but they are an extreme outlier in the industry.

>this seems to make the case that writers were previously overpaid

What does it say about our society that the regression to the average no longer accommodates classic expectations of American life like homeownership.

I would assume they meant home (or land) ownership in Southern California, which was not a classic expectation of American life.

My reading is that they paid for the entire house with less than one year's work.

That's a lot more money than the classic homeowner expectation.

But it's a feast or famine deal - one year you make enough for a house, the next 5 years you are looking for another show to work on, and that's assuming you are at the top of your profession - a lot of people doing writer's work (such as writing spec scripts) have never had a gig, and even among those who do get a paying writing job many won't find a second. I don't know the numbers for TV writers, but 65% of people with a movie writing credit only ever get the one, and only 20% get 3 or more. Residuals might take the edge off, but if you're only expecting to see one solid payday a decade you better be getting enough to buy a house.

Wouldn't a show usually hire you for multiple years?

But yes if it's that irregular then the height of the pay spikes is reasonable. And also being that irregular is awful.

Possibly. Shows don't necessarily get multiple seasons, and even if they do writers aren't necessarily brought back for their duration. For example of the 11 people with writing credits for Stranger Things (including both Duffer Brothers), 6 have only written for a single season. Now if you are the showrunner for a successful series you're going to be making bank for a while, but the overwhelming number of writers will never be in that position.

> this seems to make the case that writers were previously overpaid way beyond normal americans, and perhaps salaries are regressing to what average americans make

The simpler explanation is writers were appropriately paid based on their supply and demand in previous years, and a decrease in pay in future years indicates a shift in supply and demand.

A) Houses were cheaper back then.

B) Streaming wasn't as big back then, so TV was a much bigger part of the entertainment pie.

C) The show was profitable for FOX (at the time).

C) Truly bizarre that people on a forum bragging about making well into the 6 figures for 30 hours of work a week reinventing yet another wheel are talking shit about other people making 6 figures for 60 hours of work a week on a product regularly enjoyed by millions of people and which contribute to the progression of shared cultural experiences.

phoebe waller bridge has a single credit of interest for writing, which is "no time to die", where she is one of 4 writers and doesn't have a story credit unlike the other three writers. The other writers include Neil Purvis and Robert Wade (who both have 20 years of bond film writing credits each).

She won awards for Killing Eve which is a show that is "mid" in every way.

Sometimes people get large paydays for reasons other than talented writing. If Phoebe Waller-Bridge is getting large paydays for writing its not because of her comprehensive work history and achievements.

phoebe waller bridge has a single credit of interest for writing

This says more about your tastes than your understanding of Hollywood.

Ms. Waller-Bridge wrote 2 critically acclaimed TV shows which were hits for their respective distributors: Fleabag (an Amazon Video launch series), and Killing Eve (BBC). She also wrote several smaller series for the BBC, and co-wrote No Time to Die, and provided uncredited rewrites for Solo, Indiana Jones 5, and is currently working on another TV show for Amazon.

For her work on both Fleabag and Killing Eve, she was nominated for outstanding writing by her peers (and won for Killing Eve). Taking into account the number of episodes she wrote for both of these series, she actually has more writing credits than her 3 credited NTTD co-writers.

doesn't have a story credit unlike the other three writers

A story credit is given to a writer that participated in writing the treatment for the film (i.e., the outline), in situations where a treatment is drafted before the script itself is written. A story credit is a lesser credit in Hollywood. Where there is overlap between the story by and screenplay by credits, it means that the original writers' first draft(s) weren't filmable and another writer had to be brought into salvage the script. Some writers will re-write enough things to get sole credit for the final script; others, like PWB, will make just the changes necessary to get it across the finish while still letting the original screenwriters get credited for their contributions.

>2 critically acclaimed TV shows

I tried to watch them.

My opinion is that they were critically acclaimed because the subject matter was popular or outrageous not necessarily because they were good. There aren't any sympathetic characters in fleabag - its a tale of a mentally unstable desperate neurotic woman as she goes from revolting situation to revolting situation through bad decisions she's mostly at fault for. It isn't funny. If you giggle when unlikable people talk about anal sex this may be for you.

Killing eve was a tv show that embodies "mid" in every way, except its about lesbian/bisexual bait so it wins awards.

>Solo, Indiana Jones 5,

Solo was a bad movie and the first star wars film to actually lose money, and indiana jones 5 hasn't been released yet so I'm withholding judgement.

>Taking into account the number of episodes she wrote for both of these series, she actually has more writing credits than her 3 credited NTTD co-writers.

Writing 1000 episodes of those shows isn't comparable to a single good bond film. This is why quantity and quality are not the same.

>A story credit is given to a writer that participated in writing the treatment for the film (i.e., the outline), in situations where a treatment is drafted before the script itself is written. A story credit is a lesser credit in Hollywood.

Ya, the other writers have writing credits, and story credits, and 20 years of history writing bond movies.

>Where there is overlap between the story by and screenplay by credits, it means that the original writers' first draft(s) weren't filmable and another writer had to be brought into salvage the script.

https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/heres-how-phoebe-...

>“[I was asked to do] dialogue polishes and to offer things really,” she said. “It’s about just offering different alternatives.”

>She went on to say “they did give me some scenes and then be like, can you write some alternatives for this or have another idea about where it could go in the middle or how it would end. And then I would just give them options and various scenes and then they would take what they want. But there was a lot people writing — the director [Cary Fukunaga] was a writer on it as well. And there’d been a few writers before.”

They didn't bring her in to salvage the script at all. They brought her in to do polishes of dialogue and to give them some ideas about how things could go and they'd take what they wanted. What about this reads salvaging?

She got the invited because one of the film's producers, Barbara Brocolli, invited her to contribute. in my opinion because they were looking to add female writing credits to the movie as the academy awards had suddenly introduced diversity requirements to be considered for awards and all the writers up to that point were men.

> ... critically acclaimed ... > ... bait so it wins awards.

So if you are a producer that wants "critically acclaimed" and "wins awards", author , hire her ? Maybe that answers why she is getting paid that much.

> Writing 1000 episodes of those shows isn't comparable to a single good bond film. This is why quantity and quality are not the same.

That's debatable. Personally I wasn't impressed with neither her work or last few James Bond (with the last one being the best of the lot.)

For me the best and most consistent author of past decade has been Randall Munroe of https://xkcd.com/ fame. Does he count ?

The two co-writers on No Time to Die that you keep praising were the people responsible for such trash as Johnny English, Die Another Day and The World is Not Enough, which says pretty much all you need to know about their screenwriting "skills" and their contribution to Bond history.

For all of the Craig Bond films, other writers had to be brought into to make their scripts filmable (Oscar winner Paul Haggis for Casino Royale and QoS and multiple Oscar nominee John Logan for Skyfall and Spectre, Emmy winners PWB and Fukunaga for NTTD).

Notably, Purvis and Wade have never been nominated for screenwriting awards, and the average RT score for the films they wrote without other screenwriters is...38 (the audience scores aren't much better, at 46). PWB's average is 85. Fukunaga's average for his screenplays is 87. PH and JL have won or been nominated for multiple Oscars.

The WGA has strict rules about screenwriting credits. If she got screenwriting credit for a major blockbuster, she didn't just "polish" a little bit of the script, she wrote significant portions of the script that made it into production. And given their historical backgrounds, it's clear that she and Fukunaga were responsible for the serious elements of the film, since that's not a capability that Purvis and Wade have demonstrated in any of their prior films.)

except its about lesbian/bisexual bait so it wins awards. in my opinion because they were looking to add female writing credits

And suddenly your agenda becomes clear...Most people aren't so open about being misogynists.

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