Massive, Across the Board Paycuts at ABC Daytime?!

[DaytimeFan]

All of the ABC soaps air in Canada. AMC was HUGELY popular in the 80s and 90s. GH has also always been popular. OLTL is definitely the red headed stepchild in Canada, but it airs. So it gets an audience. Aside from Canada, I don't think the ABC shows are marketed all that hard which is a bad thing.

[Kubla Khan]

Of course GH's actors are going to have to take paycuts. People seem to have this idea that AMC, OLTL, and GH's profits get combined into one huge pool and Frons has the say to give 90 % of that to GH, and 5 % to the other two if he pleases. That's not how network budgeting works -- the shows have their own individual budgets, and if all three of 'em aren't earning what they should be, there'll be cuts at all three!

[GregNYC]

I know Eric Braeden said he earns $1.5 million a year.

[EastMA2]

Oh boy - Strassers' not gonna be happy. Remember her hotline about a year ago when she complained that she was only making 50% of what she was making back in 1999? She won't be happy.

[MarkH]

I recently saw Italian openings for all of the ABC soaps on Youtube. They were older. I don't know if the ABC shows STILL air in Italy.

My sense is that the official story is that foreign sales are nice, but "chump change". They do not offset the bulk of US production costs. At the same time, when I look at the two most popular international shows (Bell shows), I (and others) seem to see them spending MORE not less money. Their ratings (esp. B& are not high enough that they should be protected from this economic downturn. So maybe the foreign dollars do matter.

I also assume that the production houses may be willing to take less profit...as long as they break even...during a downturn like this.

I wondered if this was what he was alluding to in Nelson Branco's interview...something like "I'm happy with the story, but not so much with other things..."

I worry, actually, that when the pay cuts hit Y&R, we'll lose many of our starts. In recent years, Braeden, Scott, Woodland, Case, Morrow (others?) have all walked when contract negotiations fell apart. Heather Tom left the show when her pay cut (reduced guarantee; used less) happened.

I think there are performers on Y&R who will just walk. Braeden, for example, does not strike me as "sacrifice for the team". Therefore...all the headlines that "Drake and Dee" are getting now....I expect them to repeat for "Eric and Melody" before the day is done.

The thing is...is there another game in town?

I was actually in a situation in the last year where the economic downturn led to the issue of across-the-board paycuts being DISCUSSED. It's one thing to say theoretically, but when you suddenly have to live on less money...it's a hard pill to swallow. Especially if you have the same workload.

With that in mind, however, you're more apt to swallow this if there is no other game in town...and if your previous earnings have not made you independently wealthy .

So, unfortuntely, this becomes the classic "over the barrel" scenario: Do it, or have no job....and good luck finding another. That is essentially what Ken Corday said about his show: "Demonstrate teamwork or... goodbye".

===

For me, in the end, this all feels like we're closer to the end than I thought (for the genre).

We see this in many failing industries. The last step is "employee concessions". In some industries (like air or automobile) it CAN work because there is a hope for economic recovery.

Not for soaps. Sure, there may be more advertisers in the future, but the advertising game has changed. They value broadcast advertising less. AND nothing happening here will bring back soap viewers. They're gone forever.

I really thing the Days scenario describes where all of daytime is headed. These massive cuts will eke out another 18 months or so...and then the shows are gone. We've seen it at Days/NBC, we're seeing it at ABC now, and we saw it last year and before with CBS/P&G. Only the Bell soaps seem less publically to be going through this. (Years ago, Shaughnessy said they were doing significant cost cutting, but it was their goal for us not to notice it on screen. That began the era of use of fewer sets....but these days we seem to see MORE sets).

In that sense, I think all this cost cutting is heroic, but ultimately futile.

[Jonathan]

Eric Braeden talking about Eric Braeden? That's a shock.

[Darlotto99]

Y&R will never let their top stars walk because unlike other soaps they are in great shape finnacialy due to thier over sea air's of both Y&R and B&B.

the vet's will leave when they want to retire

secondly the Bell's respect their vet's unlike the other soaps and they actually write storyline's for the vets where they are front and centered. i.e Jeanne Cooper (Katherine Chancellor) signed a new 3 year contract and is 80 years of age and is front and center in storyline's.

the rest of daytime are not in the Y&R and B&B leauge it's not even close it's the Bells soaps and everyone else. no comparisons.

ABC if they were smart would move all their soaps to Soapnet and try to make that network respectable.

[CassieFan]

Nope.... only Y&R, B&B and GL.

[EricMontreal22]

Loving and AMC (Called Pine Valley I think) were for a while very popular in Italy. I know AMC currently airs in South Africa 3 years behind.

Canada doesn't reallyc outn as a foreign market--we get all of the US networks here free anyway (and *all* the US soaps currently are simulcast on various Canadian stations). Back in the 70s when we didn't apparantly egt all the networks (this is before my time) I know CBC Carried Edge of Night and AMC, etc.

[alphanguy74]

Foreign airing DO make a differenc in the bottom line, especially where they air in prime time. Let's not forget Australia. But we need to also realize that network TV is not the only game in town, first run syndication is always a possibility. Also, when it comes to Y&R.... Braeden's salary is a huge burden on the show, but he does earn it. I think the actors will be alot less cocky when it comes to contract negotiaions in the future.. AS LONG AS THE ACTORS AREN'T THE ONLY ONE ASKED TO TAKE PAY CUTS. I'd be interested to know what the actors' pay rates are today, compared to 30 years ago, adjusted for inflation. I know in 1983, Brenda Dickson was one of the top 3 highest paid in daytime.... and she was making 2,500$ per episode. I also think it is CRIMINAL that Eric Braeden makes more than Jeanne Cooper. To me, that is an outrage, considering she has 7 years seniority over him. Hell, evne Melody Thomas and Doug Davidson have seniority over him! It's my opinion that trimming the cast would work better for morale than pay cuts. I can tell you right now, that of the big salary contract players, Don Diamont is the least talented and most expendable. He'd be the first to go in my book. And Judith Chapman needs to be written off, big prison SL, go down in a blaze of glory.

[LoyaltoAMC]

The thing is that these actors really don't have any bargaining chips. Aging soap actors like Knight, Strasser, Slezak etc have nowhere else to go. NOBODY is flooding them with offers from prime time or film, so they've got to take the pay cuts. There may be some tough bargaining (a la Knight, from what I hear), but ultimately, if they want to continue acting, they've got to accept the reduced salaries. I hope they are making plans outside of acting for what they'll do when the plug is finally pulled on the genre. I feel sorry for them.

[SFK]

That's big money Brenda was making, but what's interesting is that it's still kinda big money. That's about three times as much as scale pay which most newbies would probably get per ep. And Brenda most likely had a weekly guarantee, so seeing as how she was involved in heavy s/ls she probably walked away with a pretty fat check.

You are right, Cooper deserves just as much if not more than Braedan, but I can understand why she isn't getting it. It's not about respect and doing whats "right", but who do the suits consider "important" in terms of ratings and therefore have to butter up in order to keep them. Reminds me of Roger Howarth and Robin Strasser. As the other poster said, soap stars of a certain age have few options, and as quiet as it's kept, soaps stars not of a certain age also have few options. Let's face it, most soap actors are soap opera born, soap opera bred, and when they die, they'll be soap opera dead. But when you're hot you're hot, and tptb will do what they have to in order to keep a hot soap commodity on their show.

[DaytimeFan]

Although Jeanne Cooper makes less than Eric Braeden, she did NOT take a pay cut when her new contract was done a few weeks ago...as everyone well knows, I can't say how I know that, but I do.

Foreign sales really matter for B&B and Y&R. They make the shows a lot of extra money that they'd never have access to otherwise.

[dragonflies]

So what's with all the newbies on AMC, if there are paycuts happening? RPG and BEh couldn't have come cheap either. I know newbies they don't have to pay as much, but it's very ridiculous to say paycuts are happening, yet one show keeps on adding new characters......

[Sedrick]

I'm sorry that the paycuts have hit ABC, but we need only to watch the evening news every night to know that the employees of ABC Daytime are no different than millions of other Americans going through the same thing right now...at least the ABC folks still have jobs...