Broadcasting (Apr - June 1960)

operate with the Chicago Assn, of Commerce and Industry. A third project involves a Gridiron dinner with the Chicago Federated Adv. Club. Dr. Leonard Kent, research director at Needham, Louis & Brorby, will coordinate the special study with Mark Munn, WGN Chicago. On the trade fair project, Mr. Herbuveaux has appointed seven task forces to plan and execute participation. Among the chairmen: Ralph Bergsten, Don McNeill Enterprises; John Keys, sales promotion manager of WNBQ (TV) and WMAQ; Fred A. Niles, president of Fred A. Niles Productions (film firm), and William Wilson, manager of radio-tv, Young & Rubicam, Chicago. STILL A STYMIE WGA again rejects producer royalty plan Another hoped-for solution to end the writers’ strike against the producers of tv films fizzled out Tuesday night (May 24). Members of the tv branch of the Writers’ Guild of America West, by a vote of 281 to 198, rejected the latest offer of the producers. The new proposal, offered jointly by the Alliance of Television Film Producers and the Assn, of Motion Picture Producers (representing the tv film operations of the major movie makers), repeats the terms of the earlier ATFP offer (Broadcasting, May 23) with the addition of a percentage plan which the writers can put into operation during the contract. The percentage or royalty plan would give the writer of a half-hour tv film, 2% of the producer’s gross receipts from that film up to $50,000 and 3% of everything over $50,000, in perpetuity. For hour-long films, the 2% applies up to $100,000, 3% after that. Against these royalties, the writer of a half-hour film would get an advance of $1,275; for an hour show the advance would be $2,310. These sums are equivalent to the minimum fees the writer would earn in the third and fourth year of the earlier ATFP offer, which calls for a 10% increase in minimums for the first two years and an additional 5% for the next two. Gross was said to mean absolute gross and to include receipts from all sources, foreign as well as domestic. Writers do not at present share in the sale of tv films abroad ancLfheir insistence on doing so is the major reason they turned down the earlier offer. A proposal to cut the writer in for a share of foreign revenue from tv films was included in the deal negotiated between the guild of Ziv-United Artists, which called for the producers to pay the writers 2% of the foreign gross. This deal fell apart, however, when it developed that Ziv-UA meant it to apply only to films produced after March 31, 1964, while the WGA negotiators had believed it would go into effect immediately (At Deadline, May 23). Ziv-UA subsequently withdrew the offer completely, joining with the other producers in the new ATFP-AMPP proposal. Confusing " Attempts to calculate what the percentage or royalty plan offers writers in actual dollars versus the present system of minimum fees for the first broadcast plus residual payments for subsequent runs, are as confusing as trying to compare the program audience figures of different rating services. The writers who turned down the idea reportedly figured something like this: A half-hour tv film will gross from $50,000 to $60,000 on the average. At 2.5% of the first $50,000 and 3% of everything over that, the writer’s share would be between $1,250 and $1,550. Currently, he receives a minimum of $1,100 for the first run and 140% of this amount in residual payments for reruns, or a total of $2,640. Obviously, on this basis, the royalty plan makes little economic sense for the writer. But the producers say that those calculations are not correct. The way they see it, the royalty plan would pay the writer of a half-hour tv film script between $1,125 and $1,250 for the first broadcast of the program (figured on a gross of $45,000 to $50,000 for the first run rights). Even the lesser figure is $25 better than the present minimum of $1,100, they point out. And, they add emphatically, the writer would get an advance of $1,275 which he could retain, no matter how little return the producer might get. Figuring the second run gross as between $15,000 and $20,000, the writer’s share would be between $425 and $600, depending on whether $5,000 would be needed to bring the total up to the $50,000 mark, and so would carry a royalty of only 2.5% versus the 3 % that would go with all grosses above $50,000. Again, they note, both of these are better than the present first rerun fee of 35% of the $1,100 minimum, or $385. Pocket Extra Cash ■ The producers also point out that any amount received by the writer for his script in excess of the $1,275 advance would not be included in the royalty calculations. A writer getting $2,000 for his tv film script would have only $1,275 deducted from his royalty payments. He could pocket the extra $725 in the same way he now pockets any fee above the minimum he or his agent is able to persuade the producer to pay. On this basis, the writer who was paid $2,000 for the script of a program which BROADCASTING, May 30, 1960 65