$259.71

Streaming has been a case study in bubbles and hype. There was an wave of scripted productions, everyone was talking about being part of the next big thing, and huge checks were bouncing around. Unfortunately, almost all of that money went to the studios, the producers, a few stars, and a handful of big name directors. Almost none of it made it to the rest of the actors, the writers (except for writer/producers who own a stake in their series), and the other creative people behind the movies and shows. 

I can hear some of you in the back of the room saying "just another day in Hollywood," but while it's true that all these things have happened before, the streaming era has taken all of them to unprecedented level. The production budgets, the tens of billions for marketing/PR, the credulity of the press, the fanciful accounting and earnings projections, the magnitude of the astronomical paychecks and the disparity with all the other paychecks.  

 

Ethan Drogin writing for the LA Times.

In America, unprecedented success begets unprecedented wealth. When Michael Jordan wins six championships or Mark Zuckerberg invents social media, they earn billions.

And not only them but also their teammates — the people whose contributions weren’t just meaningful but necessary. In success, they get paid, too.

But not in Hollywood. Here, when you write for a show that becomes an unprecedented success, there is no such windfall. There is only a check for $259.71.

It doesn’t matter whether the show you helped build generates 3.1 billion viewing minutes in one week across Netflix and NBCUniversal’s Peacock, setting a Nielsen record. It doesn’t matter whether said show constitutes 40% of Netflix’s Top 10.

$259.71: That’s how much the “Suits” episode I wrote, “Identity Crisis,” earned last quarter in streaming residuals. All together, NBCUniversal paid the six original “Suits” writers less than $3,000 last quarter to stream our 11 Season 1 episodes on two platforms.

Another important piece of context. As we've mentioned before, while the streaming "originals" generate almost all of the hype and consume all but a sliver of those tens of billions allotted for marketing/PR, viewers on streaming services spend most of their time watching old network shows like NCIS, Seinfeld, and Friends. Some basic cable shows like Suits also get great numbers.

Often the streaming industry operates under an insane loss leader model where the money-losing products meant to bring them in the door cost so much they drive the companies deep into debt. It's talent like Drogin that actually drives viewership.