‘Doctor Who' Writers Changed Their Pay Structure In New Disney+ Era
‘Doctor Who' Writers Changed Their Pay Structure In New Disney+ Era
Beep your meeps, pay your writers and do it well!
The current writing staff for long-running British sci-fi series Doctor Who has reconfigured how they get paid. Reportedly, they have shifted away from a residual model and toward a buyout model.
What this means is episodic writers are now being paid a large amount upfront rather than the smaller fee and the residuals that they would earn from repeats like the show’s writers have previously. With nearly 900 episodes in the 60 years the show is currently celebrating, Doctor Who has been considered “one of the most lucrative British sources of residuals” in their television industry and would continue to be so as its catalog unites on BBC iPlayer domestically, while split between several platforms of varying styles in the US.
Remaining a British show while in the partnership, they’re in the Writers Guild of Great Britain, not America, and therefore have their own working conditions to be under in their own agreements. Ellie Peers, General Secretary of the Writers Guild of Great Britain, has said “As a trade union we take our responsibilities in negotiations very seriously and this involves being in full possession of the facts before taking up issues with broadcasters and others, both privately and publicly. The terms outlined to us… if true, would represent a serious retrograde step for UK writers working on Doctor Who.” She would also add “We urge writers who have these contracts to come forward and contact us in confidence so we can look at them properly and move forward from there.”
A spokeswoman for the BBC and BBC Studios said: “Doctor Who deals are individually negotiated and commercially confidential. However, all deals take into account both the rights needed by the programme funders and the fees and residuals payable to talent.” Contracts were freely negotiated and agreed with writers and their agents, but them coming within the first year of Disney+’s partnership with the show (at least the announcement of it) gave optics of the American company putting pressure on them in a way that would benefit the new partner above all else.
Doctor Who is produced by Bad Wolf and BBC Studios. Russell T. Davies returns as showrunner. The series returned this past Saturday with the first of three 60th anniversary specials starring David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble. Said first special, “The Star Beast” was watched by more than 5 million people who waited over 13 months for the show’s return. They transition to the run of the Fifteenth Doctor, played by Barbie’s Ncuti Gatwa and his companion Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson, whose adventures begin with a Christmas special before an eight-episode series in the spring.
Source: Deadline