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Simpsons Pay Dispute Settled
ackthpt writes "Simpsons voice actors were receiving $125,000 per episode and considering how wildly profitable the show is for FOX, in syndication and merchandising, the actors felt they should get a bigger piece of the pie. The strike is settled with a 4 year contract for the actors, though FOX is mum about further details, so the show will go on. For a bit more on this see this article on BBC News or The Gate."
Just so everybody's clear on this... a four-year contract with the actors doesn't indicate that the show has been promised four more years. TV actor contracts always are conditional on the show going on. So, what this contract means is that the production studio and the actors have agreed on the pay rate table to be used for the next four years, assuming the show goes on that long. If The Simpsons goes five more years into a 20th season, the actors and studio will need to go back to the table to talk money again.
So, as long as the show keeps going, we can be sure that there's going to be no major cast defections over the next four years.
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I heard the ad for this week's episode and thought that the voices - especially lisa's - sounded off. But, they must have already dubbed that episode, right? Or was Fox just trying to show that they were willing to use other actors by starting with a substitution in the commercial?
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yeah but if fox is making loads of money off me, regardless of how happy I am with my wage I would prefer that fox didn't gouge me.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
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It seems to me that it's highly improbable that the Simpsons will continue 5 more years. Many of the series fans indicate that the newest seasons' writing tends to be watered down. I'll admit that I liked the writing better around seasons 3-7. I think Fox wants to hold onto the franchise until it is no longer profitable or until they make the movie.
The cast of Friends have been paid an average of 1M USD per episode for the last few seasons until the show finally ended after 10 seasons.
With the Simpsons having been around for 16 seasons, I think it sounds reasonable that the voice actors should be given a raise from 125k. .
Well,first, they don't necessarily get paid each week. They get paid per episode. Difference.
When was the last time you got a raise? Did you feel bad because somebody in a third world country could live on that amount for a year? What you get paid isn't a direct relation between what you need to live on, its of what your work is worth. Their work, since it makes Fox a metric crap load of money, is worth more than yours, which doesn't make a people a crap load of money.
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For better or for worse, this is basically the same arguement that Baseball players used in the 1994 strike. It's not that they don't they're getting paid enough to live, it's that they see Fox making millions and millions of dollars. When a business is successful, you usually reward employee's with raises.
/. would do if their amazing new fangled program started making a company a boatload of profit.
It's the same thing any
However, the money values are so extreme in this case that I agree it's it seems almost pointless to us.
As far as I can tell, they aren't complaining that $125K isn't enough money. Their point is that Fox makes so much money off them that they deserve a more fairly cut slice of the pie. Seinfeld made in the millions per episode for his show. Same reasoning...
This goes along with people saying actors aren't worth the $20 Million or so to put them in a film. Well, they may not be $20 Million talented, but if their face brings in $250 Million in profits then I would say it's a good investment.
The amazing part of it is that FOX executive management decided to forgo $25 million in their own personal salary to keep the show going:
"The Simpsons is so important to the health of FOX, that it was obvious that we'd have to find the money to keep the network going. We'd either have to export animation overseas, or take a paycut. We felt it was best for our viewers, shareholders, and America to take a paycut".
Wow!
huh? easy to say now.
but when you're on that sound room, dubbing something that will get millions for the suit who is playing golf I'd bet that you'd start having different ideas. call it corruption of mind if you will.. you're on that table with your lawyer making a point that SOMEBODY gets that money and if you're really moralistic about it you can always argue to yourself that you'll do more good with the money(ie. spend it instantly - put it back to circulation, donate it or whatever, you can't donate the money from foxs account but from yours you certainly can).
Who the money should go to then? fox for owning the franchise or the guys actually doing the show? the show makes gazillions of money, it goes to somebody and sometimes you have play hardball in negotiations. I'm happier that the money goes to them than to some research assholes fox has guessing what we wish to see. this way maybe they even have enough money to do whatever they please(even artistic things) after they're done with simpsons which is way overdue already.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The Simpson's money-making machine is an interesting study in how the content industry has re-alligned.
- 20th Century Fox is the production studio.
- The show's new episodes have been purchased by the Fox Network. (Fox was the first US TV network to share common ownership with a movie/TV production studio. The The ABC-Disney Merger, the CBS-Viacom Merger, and the creation of the United Paramount Network and The Warner Bros. Network all came later.)
- The show's syndicated episodes from prior seasons are distributed by 20th Cenutry Fox. (Networks used to be forbidden to participate in the syndication market. During that time, off-network reruns needed to be packaged by a seperate syndication company, or distributed by the production company. This rule was striken before this rule applied to Fox.)
- In most major markets, the show's syndicated reruns are puchased by the Fox Station Group. (In recent years, the laws have changed to allow there to be more such network-owned stations than before because fo a raising of the station ownership limits for a single company.)
- In many places, the syndicated reruns air during the 7:00 hour. (This would have been blocked by Prime Time Access Rule, but the rule never applied to Fox and was striken rather than modifed to include Fox as a network.)
In short... several of the steps in The Simpsons money-making machine would have been illegal in the 1970s. I'm not saying that The Simpsons wouldn't have existed under those rules, but the show would be a whole lot less profitable, and the profits would land in more hands than just the bottom line at News Corp.
In the TV world, 125K per episode is NOTHING for such a popular show. Ray Romano gets 16 times that much (around $2,000,000) per episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond".
I know there's a big difference between live actors and voice actors, but if you're going to be complaining about people making too much, don't complain about these guys.
So the writers, animators, technicians and other staff will also be getting equivalent raises... right? Or are the actors just extortionists, knowing that they're hard to replace?
These people already have enough money to retire and not need to work again while living nicely... so their personal comfort is no longer any incentive to work.
However, they're still accumulating money for the future of their family... and they're also well aware that News Corp.'s money making machine from The Simpsons would start slowing down if all of them were not to come back to the show.
That's their reason to hold out... they want their fair cut of the profits, because even though all of them are rich beyond their wildest dreams, that still doesn't make getting taken advantage of feel any better.
I'm timing myself at about 7 syllables per second, speaking about as quickly as the Simpsons characters do when on a roll.
So $125,000 / 7 / (3.5*60) comes to about $85 per syllable.
Having them read this post would cost me about 168 syllables * $85 is $14,280.
These guys are substantially increasing the cost of producing a new episode (assuming they didn't also push residuals upward), which means the show is going to get to that cost:returns balance point that much sooner. Two or three years down the line when they lower the new episode count and finally produce the great grand last episode of The Simpsons, and it's all reruns after, will you still be making excuses for these guys? The show could run much longer if everybody weren't holding it hostage to milk it for as much cash as they can. That other folks do it to doesn't make it any less slimy.
Seriously, $125,000 per episode is some REALLY good pay. In their shoes, that kind of mad cash and knowing I was producing something so integral to American culture would be enough.
... is that no-one is saying "Yay! More Simpsons episodes!! Gee golly, I'm sure glad about that, why, that show just keeps on pushing the envelope, it's a miracle they've been around this long and STILL haven't jumped the shark! It sure is better than all those cancelled shows like Family Guy or Futurama and stuff like that.."
.. Worst .. Raise .. Ever ..
Nope, none of that here..
I guess the voice actors asked for a raise realising that whatever they get now is going to be their pension..
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$125,000 an episode
What, 23ish episodes per season
Let's estimate and say Federal tax + state tax + social security + medicaid tax is around 50-55% (Someone feel free to correct me)
Now we're talking $68K per episode, or around a million and a half dollars a year. Another poster mentioned that there are four main voice actors. This is chump change for the studio.
Contrast that to how much Fox makes on a season of the Simpsons and it does seem awfully unfair.
Just be forewarned, FOX could have easily spent this money on developing even MORE crappy reality TV shows... All the development costs go to a six pack of beer and a half crazed development exec, who thinks up all their reality programming.
With the sole exceptions of Simpsons, 24, and Bernie Mac, FOX hates it's viewers... (The Littlest Groom, When Animals Attack, World's Deadliest _______?, Who wants to Marry a Millionaire, The Mask, Return to Eden..., etc...)
Do ANY of you want the Swan to return?
I didn't think so...
Parent is absolutely right. What the whiny slashdot crowd who keeps screaming "Greed!" is forgetting is: What happens to the excess money if they just take whatever amount Fox is willing to give? Let's do an example:
Let's say Fox makes $1 million in profit per actor per episode, after paying everyone but the actors. If Fox pays the actors $125,000 a piece, that is $875,000 per actor in pure profit into the News Corp's wallet. That's several million dollars per episode to finance Fox News Channel propaganda and generally make a few very rich men even richer and more powerful.
I think, if the Simpsons actors feel they are making less than their fair market value from Fox they are morally obligated to negotiate a higher salary and perhaps donate the balance to a good cause, or even just do anything with the money that's not evil. That would be better than the alternative of letting News Corp keep it.
Being willing to let others profit off you and only get a tiny portion of compensation is not a virtue, it's stupidity and it only leads to exploitation by the most corrupt element of society (such as News Corp).