AMC: "Grossly over-budget"

[LeClerc]

Jamey Giddens revealed recently that AMC is "grossly over-budget" despite the move to LA and is in big trouble. As in "Axe meet AMC" trouble.

My question is: Why is the show "grossly over-budget"? How in the heck can this show be "grossly over-budget"?

Before everyone responds "Because Carruthers is totally incompetent", please read my ramblings if you have the time and then I'm curious to read what thoughts/insights others have.

The Sets

From what I'm seeing on-screen all the sets stay up permanently in the studio except for just one that alternates every week or two. One week we might see Angie and Jesse's apartment, then that disappears for a while and we see Randi and Frankie's apartment. Then that goes away for a while and we see Jake and Amanda's place or something. But all the rest of the sets -- and by "all" I mean all 8 of them: the yacht club, the yacht club guest rooms (which are the same set), BJ's, the main Chandler room, the Chandler bedrooms (which are the same set), Wildwind, the hospital, Tad's place...am I forgetting anything? -- stay up. So the cost of transporting sets, putting them up and breaking them down has to have gone down dramatically, right? I know there was some report that once they got to LA they realized that nobody had actually booked the storage facility, but SOD reported at the beginning of the year that sets started being shipped out to LA in November and were being given fresh coats of paint in the storage facility.

A couple of new sets have been built (mostly hotel rooms) at a time when new sets aren't built (unless you are GH and then you can do whatever the heck you want) but nothing major except for Erica's penthouse. Now there's one place they screwed up: they built a big new set for Erica and then clearly realized after-the-fact that they didn't have room for it.

The Writing

Kreizman and Swajeski's writing seems to be very low-cost writing in that it's all just people sitting and talking, and usually just 2-person scenes. There are no explosions, no shoot-outs, no carnivals or musicals. Just people having the same conversations over and over again. Moreover, Kreizman and Swajeski have to be quite a bit cheaper than Chuck Pratt of Melrose Place/Desperate Housewives/Ugly Betty.

The Crew

Many long-time crew members (just two examples being 20-year producer Ginger Smith and 20-year director Conal O'Brien) were weeded out with the move. Most of the new crew members have thin resumes and probably came cheap. If DOOL's Richard Culliton is the most over-worked scriptwriter in the industry then Casey Childs and Michael Pomarico are his directing equivalents as, between them, they direct nearly all the episodes. Perhaps the writing team could be made more cost-effective by getting rid of people like Esensten & Brown in favor of younger and cheaper (and better) writers like Celena Cipriaso, but that would still be a drop in the bucket for a show that is "grossly over-budget".

The Cast

First, not counting the half-hour B&B AMC probably has the second-smallest contract cast (next to DOOL).

There were the reported 40% pay cuts of 2008. And even before that people weren't exactly raking it in: Ricky Paull Goldin took a pay cut when he jumped from Guiding Light to AMC!

David Canary is gone. Ray McDonnell is gone. If James Mitchell was still on contract as his presence in the opening suggests he was, his pay is off the books. Chrishell Stause is no longer on contract. Thorsten Kaye is no longer on contract. Susan Lucci and Walt Willey are on 3 month breaks and their salaries have likely been cut accordingly. Susan (and probably Walt as well) has another extended vacation around Thanksgiving, so that's another salary reduction.

The only possibly expensive actor the show has added is Michael Nouri and even he probably didn't come with all that big a price tag. On the whole the show has gone cheap with its casting the last couple of years (Adam Mayfield, Brittany Allen, Natalie Hall, Christina Lind, Finn Wittrock, Trent Garett, even Stephanie Gatschet). Rebecca Budig did return, but is her salary more than what David Canary, Ray McDonnell and James Mitchell made plus the savings from Stause, Kaye, Lucci and Willey!?

They did bring Julia Barr back for 2 months in order to give Adam a fitting exit. And then there were all those cameos for the anniversary episode, including sending a production team to James Mitchell's home so that he could be included. And then Taylor Miller and Gillian Spencer for Palmer's memorial. And they could have saved some money by not using any clips in the anniversary and James Mitchell memorial episodes. But you can imagine the reaction had they not shown clips in either of those episodes or not brought anyone back for Palmer's death: "TIIC are so cheap!"

When I look at AMC I see a show that is being produced on the cheap. Cheap actors. The same sets day after day. MIA children. No extras. Directors directing 7 episodes in a row. The worst Emmy montage I have ever seen. An opening that is never updated. And lighting that makes Craig Ferguson's show seem well-lit.

And yet AMC is grossly over-budget and its existence is hanging on by a thread. I don't disbelieve that. I just don't understand how that is. The cost of the move didn't come out of AMC's regular budget did it? I'm sure essentially taking over the Andrita Media Center is expensive, but shouldn't the exces at ABC who mandated this move have...oh I don't know....realized that!? Is the budget Frons gives AMC to work simply unmanageable?

What am I missing? If Carruthers was replaced what more could that new EP do to get the budget under control other than start scouting for California's Peapack?

[EricMontreal22]

Call me in denial but I don't fully buy this "OLTL is SOOO under budget and AMC is still SOOO overbudget" stuff. First of all, how do they know? Who releases that info officially? it's all hearsay. And this must mean GH has a MUCH larger budget than AMC (I suspect it has a slightly larger one, but...)

I do think JHC mismanages (and Valentini seems to have a great handle on that aspect of producing). And we know the move caused some issues, forgetting to lease a storage space for sets or something. But by now that must have been remedied--further more ABC would be idiotic to not realize that after a move like that--for the first half year or so the budget will go UP, till things settle, and everything starts finding its place. So I think claiming it's still overbudget and that means it's gonna be canceled next week is bs. If it's still overbudget by Dec, than yeah that prob could cause a prob (though would ABC pay all that for the move just to throw the baby out with the bathwater? Wouldn't they try to downzise the cost drastically first? Of course maybe not--they're not super bright about these things but)

The anniversary cameos and even Julia Barr barely cost the show--I don't buy that having Taylor Miller, who has gone on about wanting to come back and is a no name, for 20 seconds on an anniversary episode, and then ONE show would cause disruption in the budget. Barr undoubtedly cost more but it sounds like she also did it largely as a favour and to give some closure to her character (though I hope she comes bacl)--these aren't Vanessa Marcil type issues where they have to use money to woo them back. Was ANYONE else in the anniversary episode even a somewhat kinda sorta big name??

I also don't buy that flying La Lucci out has caused a huge prob.

I do think the show looks better now that it's moved than you give it credit for, and maybe that cost some (but much of that is simply they have much more room for more expansive sets). And Susan has gone on record talking about the relatively huge salary cut she accepted.

Anyway--I know i'll get in trouble for saying this, and AMC and OLTL are both my soaps, but EVERYONE who has said this, i've noticed, has been OLTL fans, many of whom have even admitted they don't care much for AMC....

[leahanna]

I am not sure, you made good points. I have heard that AMC is the one actually in trouble, not OLTL as that show is way under budget and the ratings are all but the same. The only thing I can think of is the actors that commute, I am sure AMC is paying for their airfare, room and board, etc. Like I remember reading when Alicia Minshew came out in April, the show paid for her, her husband and baby and probably put them up. That is the only thing I can think of.

[DRW50]

Eric has a good point. We don't actually know whether the show is overbudget. I will say that sometimes if someone is incompetent or not looking closely then there are huge expenses run up which they may not even notice.

I guess Budig's salary might be fairly solid to get her to come back, and then they had to fly Alicia back and forth from NY to LA didn't they? It's hard to tell.

I don't think bringing back some of the vets for special episodes does a lot to hurt the budget.

[EricMontreal22]

The one budget issue that made sense to me was Summer 2009 apparently they went over budget which is why JHC had the "brilliant" idea to spend 2 or more weeks at that awful dance marathon. And I wouldn't even be shocked if that (and issues with the move--which again of COURSE initially costs more money) is where these rumours stem from. But seriously--again I know people are gonna say this is me in denial--I think that's exactly all they are. Rumours. And yeah, rumours sometimes hold truth, but often, not.

The "OLTL is WAY WAY under budget and AMC costs the amount of a Speilberg movie" talk has been repeated ad nauseum for it seems nearly two years now that I feel like people are just blindly parroting it back as fact.

Aside from her, Lucci is the only one that really commutes--I know Debbi still lives in Connecticut but they made it sound like she stays in LA much much longer at a time.

[AllMyDaysatGH]

Hi LeClerc, great post. I quite frankly don't get how AMC is "over budget", either. You layed things out really well. I wish Jamey would be more specific, it seems he just says it and that's it. No explanation or anything.

I have to disagree with you about AMC's lighting...I don't think it is bad at all. I think AMC looks the best out of all the soaps, actually. Tied with GH. Both shows look beautiful to me!

Michael Pomarico has been directing so many episodes, your right. IDK about Casey Childs. He directed a few episodes last week, but as of late, If I'm not wrong, we didn't see his name for a while this month (same goes for SW Rebecca Taylor. She used to dominate, but then she hwas MIA for a while, and then just last week I saw her name as the Script Writer.) Anyways, back to Directors, I think Michael Pomarico and Steven Williford direct the most episodes these days, followed by Casey Childs. But it looks like Casey Childs is making a come back, Rebecca Taylor to.lol

[marceline]

Thank you for spelling all of this out. Personally I find it hard to believe that ABC would go through the trouble of moving AMC only to cancel the show a few months later. I would think that they would give the show a year or so to find it's footing. However I do believe that Carruthers is incompetent but if they cancel the show before replacing her then they are equally as incompetent.

I'd love to see the real budget for AMC. Not what Jamey or Nelson says but the actual numbers. Too bad somebody in Business Affairs isn't willing to leak that info.

[All My Shadows]

ITA...it really doesn't add up at all.

I'd love official word from ABC on this because unless all of these people claiming to be well-versed in AMC and OLTL's money matters can provide some real back up, I don't have any reason to believe it. And that goes for you, too, Jamie Giddens.

[LeClerc]

Up until recently I had the same doubts as you regarding the budget claims. For what it's worth the reason I'm a believer now is that it's apparent Jamey is no longer concerned his favorite, OLTL, will be the first ABC show to go. He got downright giddy on the most recent DC podcast when someone said ABC wouldn't cancel AMC first: "Oh I wouldn't be so sure about that...Just you wait and see". And I think he has demonstrated he has reliable sources high up at ABC Daytime.

[leahanna]

the only thing I know OLTL does is they film a lot of episodes at once so they go dark several weeks a year, but I am not sure that's all they do. Know one knows anything but it seems like GH gets all the money and OLTL and AMC get scraps yet the ratings are basically the same.

[EricMontreal22]

Nelson and to a much, much lesser extent Jamie are NOT AMC fans, and ARE OLTL fans... It's just worth pointing out. And I agree that the fact they never give ANY reason--like "due to that new hire" or "due to all the park location shots" --for it to be over budget makes me question it all the more. I would not put it past Nelson to be worried for OLTL's future and try to somehow change that by spreading rumours about AMC's future instead.

But the way it's become fact among these boards is surreal. Every (admittedly lame and pointless) conversation about what soap will go next ALWAYS has a good number of people going on about how expensive AMC is and how cheap OLTL is.

And I agree, if ABC replaces it without trying out a new EP first (I really thought by now they woulda picked someone west coast and JHC was just going along to smooth out the move) they're idiotic.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

ABC doesn't own the studio ABC is filmed in right? So they have to pay what is probably a hefty studio fee year round to be there. What the other big expenses are, I don't know.

[EricMontreal22]

I have no doubt about that. Surely ABC would wise up and realize GH's current ratings and demos--for a good while now--don't deserve the extra money. But that won't happen.

No it was where the sets and props would be stored where the screw up happened--to the best of my knowledge, it's an ABC studio. That was a big reason for the move, wasn't it? (I could be utterly off base here)

I totally get your reasoning but I call his bluff--I feel like it's exactly how Nelson behaves. It's like spreading opinion as if it's fact will make it start to come true.

[AllMyDaysatGH]

Doesn't AMC do the same thing? I think it was the week of August 9 (and it even started a little before that), it was clear they shot a lot of episodes in one day, because everyone had the same clothes for like a week and a half. It was the day Kendall returned, that whole day branched through the whole week, and into the next Wednesday. So much ground was made in story, to...LOL.

And I know the AMC set is going dark all next week, everyone is on vacation. They've done that a few times this year I think

[Y&RWorldTurner]

AMC films at Andrita Studios, which ABC/Disney does not own.