WGA Slams Studios’ Latest Offer
deadline.com
deadline.com
>This is the highest wage increase for the WGA in 35 years: a compounded 13% increase over the three-year contract, with an increase of 5% in year one; 4% in year two; and 3.5% in year three.
>On top of wage increases, a 15% increase in minimum weekly rates for Article 14 writers (other than Story Editors or Executive Story Editors) in the first year of the agreement with further general wage increases in the second and third years of the agreement. This would take a writer from:
> $9,888/week to $11,371/week for guarantees of up to 9 weeks;
> $8,240/week to $9,476/week for guarantees of 10-19 weeks; and
> $7,412/ week to $8,524/week for guarantees of 20-29 weeks (all are 15% increases)
>Total worldwide (domestic and foreign) residuals would increase from $72,067 to $87,546 per episode for 3 exhibition years.
>Writers will be guaranteed a minimum of 10 weeks of employment and, for Article 14 writers (other than Story Editors or Executive Story Editors), the week-to-week rate of pay will increase by 43.8% over the current rate, raising the rate from $9,888 per week to $14,214 per week.
For comparison, for most of this summer, Suits has been the most-watched show in the world. When the show was still on cable, a writer said she was paid over $12,000 in annual residuals per episode...For the year to date, the same writer has received $415 (or about $830 annualized) (https://www.ign.com/articles/the-suits-residuals-are-abysmal...). This is even though the audience for Suits is now more than 100x what is was before...
The point is that the writers actually got paid significantly more back when Suits was a relatively low-rated cable show than they do now even though it's a global success.
If it had aired on broadcast, the disparity would be even worse, since the residuals for broadcast shows are higher. And for a comparison for a broadcast TV show, the actors and writers of the Gilmore Girls had the same complaints about streaming residuals: they made several times as much back when the show was on the CW than for the Netflix season, even though the viewership of the single Netflix season was several times the combined total viewership of the show in its entire broadcast run.
The writers and cast of Law and Order and SVU made more from their TNT rerun residuals than they did from the NBC first-run broadcast residuals.