Uptight Stars, Picky Viewers Rough On TV From Demands For Even Bigger Bucks To Quest For Hits, Network Squeeze Is On
Della Reese needs time off. David Duchovny wants production of “The X-Files” moved from Vancouver. The cast of “Seinfeld,” the cast of “Friends” - seemingly a cast of thousands - fought for more money.
Is anybody on television actually happy these days?
The changing economics of a TV industry starved for viewers and starved for hits has emboldened many of its biggest names to flex their muscles for better deals, adding real-life cliffhangers to some favorite shows.
And don’t be surprised if Hollywood doesn’t always write happy endings.
Reese went public last week with complaints that CBS wasn’t raising her salary as fast as “Touched by an Angel” co-star Roma Downey. She also wants to make sure she has enough time off for her work as a minister.
Duchovny wants to be closer to his actress wife, Tea Leoni, who’s on NBC’s “Naked Truth,” and says he’ll leave his hit show after this year if production isn’t moved to Los Angeles.
Money hasn’t been mentioned yet, but Ellen DeGeneres has been exceptionally cranky: complaining about a parental advisory placed on “Ellen,” arguing with ABC over scripts and even grumbling about not getting a congratulatory phone call for winning an Emmy.
These are just skirmishes next to the highstakes game of chicken played last spring by “Seinfeld’s” supporting cast, who finally agreed to come back this fall after quadrupling their salaries.
“‘Seinfeld’ came so close to not coming back - it was really within minutes,” said Marc Schwartz, “Seinfeld” Jason Alexander’s agent.
Stars will be stars, and contract fights are nothing new to Hollywood. But the squeeze is on now as never before.
Broadcast television is relentlessly losing viewers; so far this season, ABC, CBS and NBC have each lost an average of 1 million prime time viewers since last fall. The pressure to produce new hits is enormous, yet all but a handful of the 35 new series premiering this fall will fail.
“Look at the new season so far - there aren’t many hits,” said Robert Morton, executive producer of the new ABC comedy “Over the Top.”
Networks lucky to have hits desperately want to protect and nurture them. If “Seinfeld” were to leave, not only would NBC lose a show that Schwartz estimates earns it $150 million a year in profits, its entire Thursday night juggernaut could begin to crumble.
If stars weren’t already aware that hit TV shows are increasingly valuable, an army of agents and lawyers are only too happy to tell them, said Richard Lawrence, agent for the Hollywood firm Abrams, Rubaloff and Lawrence.
Quietly last week, success paid off for “Home Improvement” star Tim Allen. He’s finishing up a deal that will reportedly pay him $1.25 million an episode next year, an eye-popping half-million per show raise. It vaults him past Jerry Seinfeld as the highest-paid sitcom actor on television.
Struggling ABC had little choice. While many critics consider “Home Improvement” well past its peak, it’s the only ABC entertainment series to regularly land in Nielsen Media Research’s top ten.
“Home Improvement” and “Seinfeld” are also the two hottest shows for selling reruns in syndication, where TV networks and studios hit the jackpot. Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michael Richards held out for a salary of $600,000 per episode because they were getting little of this syndication money.
“In the scheme of life, what I think they were paid was obnoxious,” he said. “But in the scheme of ‘Seinfeld,’ it was very little.”
Agents say stars deserve the big money because the ratio of failures to hits keeps increasing. Piling up dead series on the resume can cause real damage; how many more chances will Ted Danson, for example, have at another show?
“It’s a question of getting it while you can, using leverage while you have leverage,” Lawrence said.
xxxx PRICE OF SUCCESS Networks lucky to have hits desperately want to protect and nurture them. If “Seinfeld” were to leave, not only would NBC lose a show that Schwartz estimates earns it $150 million a year in profits, its entire Thursday night juggernaut could begin to crumble.