Iron bank: Stream full of dollars
Golden Age of Television living up to its name for many top talents
Lena Headey among other Game of Thrones actors will be paid $1.1 million per episode for the show’s last two seasons. PHOTO: FILE
With the audience shifting from conventional media to digital streaming platforms, the so-called Golden Age of Television is living up to its name for many top talents, according to The Hollywood Reporter. With the influx of over 50 outlets producing scripted original programming, the competition for available stars and thus, the price tag for Hollywood’s upper echelon have skyrocketed beyond what longtime TV insiders have ever seen.
Robert De Niro is getting $750,000 for each of 20 episodes of an upcoming Amazon series produced by film-maker David O Russell. Meryl Streep is said to have commanded a whopping $825,000 per episode to sign on for J J Abrams’ Warner Bros. TV miniseries The Nix, which has yet to land at a network. One veteran TV buyer said, “Someone is going to crack the $1 million mark.”
Many on the network side blame Netflix for the rising salaries. The streaming network kicked off the spree in 2013 with a $100 million commitment for two seasons of Kevin Spacey’s House of Cards and will spend upward of $6 billion on original content this year. Netflix even beat HBO to pay Chris Rock $20 million for each of the two stand-up comedy specials.
But neither Netflix nor the actors are the problem anymore. Russell’s per episode budget for the Amazon show is said to be $7 million. At HBO, Ballers star Dwayne Johnson receives $450,000 per episode for the hit show. Then, of course, stars on established hits still make the most. The Big Bang Theory’s leads command $1 million per episode. The five “A-tier” stars of HBO’s Game of Thrones — Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau — recently concluded a renegotiation that will pay them each $1.1 million per episode for the show’s upcoming last two seasons.
According to insiders, the sky-high fees will continue to climb until networks back off on original series. But with scripted originals predicted to approach 500 in 2017, the demand for a star-driven, easy-to-market new show is greater than it ever has been.
“Viewership is shrinking on a per-show basis, so what [these networks] are doing is trying to break through the crowd with big-star and big-ticket names,” noted Henry Schafer, executive VP at brand specialist Q Scores.
One factor is that with outlets such as HBO, Amazon and especially Netflix are now demanding global rights to shows. Most of Netflix deals insist on flat ‘buy out’ rates. “That’s why the checks are so big,” Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said.
And then there was Woody Allen’s first TV series, the poorly reviewed Crisis in Six Scenes, which cost Amazon a huge fee. That leads to a concern that enormous budgets and big names won’t always guarantee success. Snarks one agent: “It could be like House of Cards or it could be like Woody Allen’s Amazon show.”
Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2016.
Robert De Niro is getting $750,000 for each of 20 episodes of an upcoming Amazon series produced by film-maker David O Russell. Meryl Streep is said to have commanded a whopping $825,000 per episode to sign on for J J Abrams’ Warner Bros. TV miniseries The Nix, which has yet to land at a network. One veteran TV buyer said, “Someone is going to crack the $1 million mark.”
Many on the network side blame Netflix for the rising salaries. The streaming network kicked off the spree in 2013 with a $100 million commitment for two seasons of Kevin Spacey’s House of Cards and will spend upward of $6 billion on original content this year. Netflix even beat HBO to pay Chris Rock $20 million for each of the two stand-up comedy specials.
But neither Netflix nor the actors are the problem anymore. Russell’s per episode budget for the Amazon show is said to be $7 million. At HBO, Ballers star Dwayne Johnson receives $450,000 per episode for the hit show. Then, of course, stars on established hits still make the most. The Big Bang Theory’s leads command $1 million per episode. The five “A-tier” stars of HBO’s Game of Thrones — Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau — recently concluded a renegotiation that will pay them each $1.1 million per episode for the show’s upcoming last two seasons.
According to insiders, the sky-high fees will continue to climb until networks back off on original series. But with scripted originals predicted to approach 500 in 2017, the demand for a star-driven, easy-to-market new show is greater than it ever has been.
“Viewership is shrinking on a per-show basis, so what [these networks] are doing is trying to break through the crowd with big-star and big-ticket names,” noted Henry Schafer, executive VP at brand specialist Q Scores.
One factor is that with outlets such as HBO, Amazon and especially Netflix are now demanding global rights to shows. Most of Netflix deals insist on flat ‘buy out’ rates. “That’s why the checks are so big,” Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said.
And then there was Woody Allen’s first TV series, the poorly reviewed Crisis in Six Scenes, which cost Amazon a huge fee. That leads to a concern that enormous budgets and big names won’t always guarantee success. Snarks one agent: “It could be like House of Cards or it could be like Woody Allen’s Amazon show.”
Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2016.