Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

TALENT AGENTS Wo 10% 'tU/fe parties who wonder whether talent, as a whole, really appreciates how well it's treating the agent. There are other instances where the talent apparently didn't know what was going on. One network, for example, was ready to spend $250,000 on a series to see whether a certain girl star, out of television a couple of years, could be built up again. But the network finally called off the deal because of the agent's insistence on what his own cut — not the star's — should be. Another network official, happy to get a free option on a performer on condition that if the option were exercised, the program would be an agent package, questioned nevertheless whether the agent shouldn't have been thinking more about the client and demanded money for the option. And there's been more than one case where a producer tried to hire a piece of talent and was told the client wasn't available— only to be told later by the talent that he didn't know a job had been offered. Agents will tell you, however, that these are not the doings of reputable agents. In any event, even those who raise these points will agree that essentially they are matters between talent and agency — though some network officials will contend that when an agent muscles in and takes 10% on a package to which he contributes little or nothing, he is patently usurping money that otherwise could have added another good name or another choral group to the program, made the sets a little more lavish or in some other way bettered the quality of the show. It is here, these critics contend, that agents operate "against the public interest" by depriving the public of better programs without contributing anything worthwhile for their fees. Agents note, however, that there is another side. In addition to the business complexities which they supervise, they work very often "on spec." They may spend months building a program that never sells, but their overhead goes on. Said one: "The patient may die, but the doctor gets paid. An attorney may lose his case, but he pockets the retainer and collects his fee. The agent must survive on hits — he can't afford misses." Mindful of the dangers of having a program tied up and out of circulation, the agent in peddling a package to a network may try to set a limit on how much "markup" the network may get in selling it to a sponsor. His idea here is to keep the network from trying to sell it at a prohibitive price which might keep the program off the air indefinitely. There is a phrase, "Anything's negotiable," that seems to be made to order for the dickering that goes on between agent and network. This exercise can be casual and quick, but often it falls just short of anatomic war. Each side is out to make the best deal possible. Both go for all they can get — the proverbial kitchen sink is lagniappe. Negotiations may go on for weeks and Broadcasting months. Many a show — Mama, The Goldbergs, Name That Tune, to mention a few — was on the air for six months or more before a contract was signed. Some have run a full season and gone off the air before the lawyers finished splitting the last infinitive. But on the whole the consensus appears to be that in most cases where performance starts before a contract is agreed upon, the eventual contract, or settlement, hews pretty closely to the basic agreement behind the original handshake — or is a reasonably good facsimile thereof. This need not be especially surprising. The networks deal in the best talent they can get, and the best talent can scarcely afford to be represented by irresponsible agents. Almost without exception, experi THE FOUNDER WILLIAM MORRIS SR., who died in 1932, is regarded as the first professional talent agent. He founded the William Morris Agency in 1898. enced network authorities say they have confidence in the word of the agents with whom they deal. And agents appear equally respectful of those with whom they do business. Said one: "There is a high degree — a fantastic degree— of fidelity to commitments in this business. The given word is astoundingly reliable. The word of a network executive or major advertising agency will stand up in a great majority of cases — and in those cases where it doesn't, very often there are genuine misunderstandings rather than direct attempts to evade a commitment." The same quote, turned around to apply to agents, could be attributed to most network authorities without damage to the views they express. But not quite unanimously. At least one influential executive contended flatly and without reservation that in his book television would be better off if agents, for all their acknowledged contributions, did not exist. He felt the agent too often is evasive if not deceitful, elusive if not slippery, opportunistic if not predatory. One of his prime complaints: The agent will stall around and hold up the signing of a contract until filming is under way or the first live show is on the air — and then demand more money or additional rights on the threat of yanking the star and walking out. This critic recognized that the agent often is helpful in the tedious and sometimes tempestuous process of turning an idea or a script into a program. He acknowledged that without the agent the network would have to do its own auditioning, screening, calling and clearing of talent for programs, and, perhaps worse yet, would have to deal directly with artistic, non-businesslike people and risk all sorts of temperamental blow-ups. Yet he felt the sum of all these prices would not be too great to pay for a tv world without agents — not even the dire risk of having to tell a star face to face that she isn't worth her asking price. He even managed to see a glimmer of hope in the prospect: Most stars probably could not, without demeaning themselves, dicker in their own behalf as extravagantly or as effectively as their agents do. As actress Jessica Tandy once said, in discussing the agent's usefulness: "I could never go out and sell myself." There are other practices which this and other critics found distasteful. One was that of throwing a pilot film into a regular series and thus sampling public reaction at the expense, or at least partially at the expense, of the regular series' sponsor (although seeing the possibilities of a good series in a single telecast was listed among an agent's better attributes) . Another criticism was aimed at "agents who sign up talent we need after he finds that we need them," and also "the sort of agent who sees a guy get off the train and gets his name on a contract, then sits back and does little or nothing until we try to sign the guy, whereupon the agent is right there to get his 10%." Another target: Agents who sell an option to one producer and then sign the same talent to a firm contract for an opposition program. (MCA was reported to have got into a mix-up like that with Jack Carson during radio's heyday but extricated itself by furnishing the offended buyer with five top-priced shows at its own expense.) Since "anything's negotiable," the deals that agents make with networks may vary from case to case. But it's a short day when the agent fails to take 10% of something. On packages, he asks for 10% of the gross cost. Whether he gets 10% of the below-the-line (non-creative) costs is another matter. Some network authorities say they don't pay commission on below-the-line; others say it all depends. One prominent tv agent put it this way: "The deals have varied, but in the main — speaking from our own experience — we have gotten 10% of the whole package. There have been instances where agents received commissions on the above-the-line and then deferred their commission on the below-the-line, meaning that they got them after the cost of the project had been recouped. But I must say that there have been many variety of arrangements made." Another agent noted that networks today are looking at budgets much more closely than they used to: "You try to get 10% of the gross, but whether you succeed or not October 21, 1957 • Page 41