SAG Actors Want Higher Residuals. Here's How Streaming Residuals Work.

[FakeNoose]

Rolling Stone link: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/how-streaming-residuals-work-sag-actors-strike-hollywood-1234802623/

SAG-AFTRA MEMBERS HAVE pressed pause on film and TV production for the past three weeks, aside from some green-lit indie projects, in an effort to get Hollywood studios and streamers, or the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), to offer them a fair deal. Last week, the Writers Guild of America received a request from the AMPTP to reconvene negotiations after a more than three-month strike, and SAG-AFTRA members are hoping to be next. While calls for fair compensation, AI protections, revenue sharing, and updates to healthcare benefits are at the top of their list, there’s been a lot of discussion about residuals. Streaming services like Netflix and Hulu have transformed traditional pay scales, and residuals that once helped actors stay afloat between projects have often diminished to pennies.

For starters, residuals are payments performers receive for TV and film projects after initial compensation. An actor can expect a residual check once a show or movie re-airs on cable or a streaming service, or sells via DVD or VOD. For streamers like Max and Disney+, initial compensation covers the first 90 days a show or film is aired. Residuals are calculated using a formula based on year, time spent on set, production type, and where it will air. Residuals contain an interplay between how much a performer should get paid and the value of the production.

Barry Gordon, a former SAG president and retired California State University media law professor, says that as streaming gained more prominence, factors like ratings and subscriber counts made it more difficult to determine how revenue should be distributed. “It’s never going to be equivalent to what it was, right, just because it’s so diverse,” Gordon, who served as SAG president from 1988 to 1995, explains. “When it was three networks, it was pretty easy to know where that show was playing anytime it was playing.”

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With the shift to streaming, Bradley says residuals have largely evaporated. Sylvia Batey Alcalá, a SAG member since 2008, has received meager residuals for streaming services, like Amazon Freevee, as well. It’s frustrating, she says, because the industry isn’t transparent when it comes to its metrics for determining success. As Oscar-winning filmmaker and TV creator Steven Soderbergh recently told Rolling Stone, “It’s impossible to figure out what’s fair if you don’t know what’s real… They will not open the books, so how do you figure out what’s fair if you don’t know what’s going on?”

- more at link -

So many movies jump to streaming very quickly, and the residual payments dry up for most of the cast. SAG is on strike now and renegotiating for changes.

Solidarity!

[LisaM]

1. I have never liked the streaming model and don't subscribe.

I never liked the whole concept - subscribe, subscribe, subscribe to more things - and IMO it really hit bottom when you could only get some shows on Amazon (which I do my best to boycott anyway) and Netflix. The worst was when Disney held people up so they could watch "Hamilton". I didn't even cave then. I essentially stopped watching the Emmy awards because they catered to these models and I am an awards show junkie. I didn't know any of the shows.

I was often disappointed at some famous people only putting their shows on streaming services. I won't name names, but it's a long list.

While residuals hadn't entered into my calculus, I am glad now I always held out against streaming services. It turns out that the things that made me uncomfortable were indicators of broader issues. I feel the same about music streaming and I know that the residual problems there are terrible.