Let's ignore the 384x average writer for a second. A company with a current market cap of $28B paid half a billion to its CEO over the past 5 years?
Yeah and the stock plummeted in that time.
Warner Discovery CEO made $498M in the last 5 years– 384x the average writer
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Re: Warner Discovery CEO made $498M in the last 5 years– 384x the average writer
#32The average writer made over $1M? Even for TV or cinema that sounds high. What’s the median?
A million over five years.
Re: Warner Discovery CEO made $498M in the last 5 years– 384x the average writer
#33Who did he piss off to get this written?
the writers
Re: Warner Discovery CEO made $498M in the last 5 years– 384x the average writer
#34> " Meanwhile, average pay for Hollywood writers has remained virtually flat at about $260,000 as 2021,... " Somehow any iota of outrage I might have felt just evaporated. Elites griping about even bigger elites don't muster much sympathy.
This is exactly what the elites are relying on. Complete lack of labor solidarity. Writer earning $260k (median for writers in Hollywood is probably far lower) and someone making $40k are both labor and need to be united against capital with resources to get its way with legislature and courts.
The guild minimum is currently $6,967 per week [0].
Not all writers write for 48 weeks per year, but that’s the minimum. So it’s fair to say that writers are well paid. But the median is probably pretty close to $260k.
[0] https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/wga-contract-inflation-min...
Re: Warner Discovery CEO made $498M in the last 5 years– 384x the average writer
#35> " Meanwhile, average pay for Hollywood writers has remained virtually flat at about $260,000 as 2021,... " Somehow any iota of outrage I might have felt just evaporated. Elites griping about even bigger elites don't muster much sympathy.
The average (mean) pay is inflated by the pay that goes to the top writers making several millions annually. The median pay is far less than $260k; the WGA estimate it is now around $70k. I know plenty of writers that were making comfortable upper-middle-class lives 10 years ago that now make less than $100k/year despite working more, on multiple shows each year. EDIT: One of my friends was a writer on a FOX broadcas…
The minimum wga wage is about $7k/week [0] so if someone is making $70k/year that means they are working only 10 weeks per year. So there’s lots of free time there.
[0] https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/wga-contract-inflation-min...
Re: Warner Discovery CEO made $498M in the last 5 years– 384x the average writer
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How little do they need to make before you feel outrage? Certainly it would have to be a small enough amount that they might face some kind of financial hardship under normal circumstances. If a company is paying all their employees (which to be clear I know is not the case here, but just as a hypothetical example) enough that they can comfortably raise a family in even the most expensive cities in the world, I'm n…
Like most project based employees, writers make their money when they work, and nothing when they don't. This means that the years they are making an "average" of $260k needs to offset the years when they aren't landing any writing gigs at all. And indeed, this is part of how Hollywood pay is structured: the seemingly inflated pay is adjusted for the fact that the work itself is highly sporadic.
> Like most project based employees, writers make their money when they work, and nothing when they don't.
Isn’t this all jobs though? I don’t get paid when I don’t work either. I’m not sure how to fix this as no one is going to pay someone when they aren’t working.
I’ve done software contracting and it’s super common to not get paid when you don’t have work and to bank a cushion to compensate for this. This is a huge chunk of the economy and includes lawyers, plumbers, electricians, etc.
Also, good people in this field aren’t sporadically employed and keep a pretty good book of business. If my attorney went a year without work, she would probably change careers as that means something is wrong.
Re: Warner Discovery CEO made $498M in the last 5 years– 384x the average writer
#37Re: Warner Discovery CEO made $498M in the last 5 years– 384x the average writer
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like most project based employees, writers make their money when they work, and nothing when they don't. This means that the years they are making an "average" of $260k needs to offset the years when they aren't landing any writing gigs at all. And indeed, this is part of how Hollywood pay is structured: the seemingly inflated pay is adjusted for the fact that the work itself is highly sporadic.
> Like most project based employees, writers make their money when they work, and nothing when they don't. Isn’t this all jobs though? I don’t get paid when I don’t work either. I’m not sure how to fix this as no one is going to pay someone when they aren’t working. I’ve done software contracting and it’s super common to not get paid when you don’t have work and to bank a cushion to compensate for this. This is a hug…
Isn’t this all jobs though? I don’t get paid when I don’t work either.
This is the crux of the issue for writers: what used to be single, extended year-long gig in the age of broadcast TV has become a series of short-term gigs lasting a few months.
Each show writing gig lasts about 2-3 months for streaming, 3-4 months for network half-season, or 5-6 months for network full-season. (These timelines reflect the duration the writer is employed; the show's full pre-production and post-production timeframes are usually a lot longer than this.)
Also, good people in this field aren’t sporadically employed and keep a pretty good book of business.
This is definitely false. Variety and The Hollywood Reporter have interviewed a number of writers as part of this strike. A number of former showrunners of successful broadcast shows and film blockbusters have been affected by this. It's not an issue of "book of business" like it is with other industries; the problem is that the work itself is simply much shorter in duration than it was in the past.
For comparison: it would be as if your coding projects that used to last for a few months now only lasted for a few days, but you got paid the same rate by unit of time as you did before (i.e., you now only get paid $5k for what once would have earned $100k).
Re: Warner Discovery CEO made $498M in the last 5 years– 384x the average writer
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
The average (mean) pay is inflated by the pay that goes to the top writers making several millions annually. The median pay is far less than $260k; the WGA estimate it is now around $70k. I know plenty of writers that were making comfortable upper-middle-class lives 10 years ago that now make less than $100k/year despite working more, on multiple shows each year. EDIT: One of my friends was a writer on a FOX broadcas…
The minimum wga wage is about $7k/week [0] so if someone is making $70k/year that means they are working only 10 weeks per year. So there’s lots of free time there. [0] https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/wga-contract-inflation-min...
No, you're misreading the article.
The rate for a writer-producer is $7.4k/week. That is for a writer that also does producing duties.
Most writers are not also employed in production capacities. Staff writers make a lot less, and seasons are a lot shorter than they used to be, so there is a lot more downtime between gigs (since few writers have the clout to work on multiple shows at the same time).
Re: Warner Discovery CEO made $498M in the last 5 years– 384x the average writer
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is exactly what the elites are relying on. Complete lack of labor solidarity. Writer earning $260k (median for writers in Hollywood is probably far lower) and someone making $40k are both labor and need to be united against capital with resources to get its way with legislature and courts.
The guild minimum is currently $6,967 per week [0]. Not all writers write for 48 weeks per year, but that’s the minimum. So it’s fair to say that writers are well paid. But the median is probably pretty close to $260k. [0] https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/wga-contract-inflation-min...
Nope, sorry that's dead wrong.
As the article notes: "The staff writer’s weekly minimum — $4,546 — would likewise need to rise 10% to equal the minimum in 2019-20 in inflation-adjusted terms."
And the article notes the average annual earnings of writers as well: "The median staff writer on a network show works 29 weeks for a wage of $131,834, while the median staff writer on a streaming show works 20 weeks for $90,920."
Or in other words, less than half of what you claim. Writers were well paid, they're not anymore.