Where Are My Residuals?

Actors/Writers Share Horror Stories On Picket Line, Social Media

Via Deadline:

With all the strike talk about low pay, WGA and SAG-AFTRA members are starting to play a little show me yours and I’ll show you mine when it comes to their (paltry) residual checks.

Just about everyone has a story to share about how their residuals took a serious nose dive with the advent of new media. A recent story in The New Yorker about how actors on the once successful Orange is the New Black never enjoyed a financial windfall only exacerbated the angst felt by actors and writers these days.

Here’s a sampling of their stories:

Jason Belleville (Home Economics): “I wrote on the first season of Cobra Kai, which is one of the biggest shows in Netflix history. I think I have more money in my pockets right now than any residuals I’ve seen from that. I was also was an executive producer of a show for Netflix called Sneakerheads, which was a smaller show, but it premiered №1 one in a bunch of countries for a little while. I have yet to see $1 from that. And I was a writer and EP on that, in comparison. Some of them [broadcast shows he worked on] you can still get some money from but obviously, it’s not like it was. But there’s always a steady trickle that comes in to remind you that you once worked, right? The [residual] formats for cable and for networks are clear and transparent. Whether they’re as much as we want them to be or not, they’re at least something that you can rely on. Whereas, some of these YouTube shows, these [shows licensed to] Netflix. This whole strike is about having money you can rely on through the years so you can pay for your mortgage, you can take care of your kids, as opposed to opening an envelope and going ‘oh, it’s a nickel this time.’”

Check out the rest of the Deadline article here. One terrible story after another. Once the streamers came along, the formula for writer and actor residuals flew out the window. They offer no transparency when it comes to how many viewers … how many views (those are different) … domestic or international. For all we know, they could just be making up the figures they dispense as residuals.

The rumor is that Netflix doesn’t want to reveal viewing numbers because if they did, Wall Street would freak out at how low they are. There is a perception Netflix has a booming audience, but again … who’s to know since they don’t reveal that information.

Meanwhile, Netflix stock has rebounded, there were a reported 6M new subscribers in Q2, both Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos made more than $50M in 2022, meanwhile …

For the latest updates on the strike and news resources, go here.

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