WGA report says scribes see flat year
Animation sector sole bright spot
The annual report by the Writers Guild of America West showed that the recently organized animation writing sector was the only area to post year-to-year increases, with the key bread-and-butter categories -- film and TV -- each posting declines.
And in a sign that the union expects upward adjustments in its next contract, the report said, "Despite expansive growth in virtually all of the entertainment industry revenue sectors, writers in Hollywood earned less in 1999 than in 1998, largely due to a contracting number of assignments and flat wage growth."
"We are clearly seeing the pressure building toward next year," noted Charles Slocum, the WGAW's director of strategic planning.
The report described the status of writing in 1999 as a "steady-state enterprise" and noted, "The numbers of writers employed and their earnings both reflect a slight decline in traditional areas of employment, offset by growth through the expansion of the Guild jurisdiction into animation."
Total employment of writers fell 2.7% to 4,419 (of the WGAW's 8,618 members employed). Median earnings for a working writer rose a modest 1.8% to $84,011, while 5% -- or about 220 -- made over $525,000.
"What the report shows is that this is very much a middle-class profession with only a small group of writers earning the top dollars," Slocum said.
Earnings from TV writing slid 1.2% to $343.1 million and employment declined 1.4% to 3,092, although the report characterized the declines as "a modest interruption in the growth of compensation." Even with the decline, TV earnings remain up 29% from 1994's total of $242.6 million.
Earnings in film writing declined 0.8% to $358.8 million, and employment saw the elimination of 83 slots to 1,788, a 4.4% decrease. Despite 1999's decline, movie earnings overall are up 30% from 1994 while employment rose 10% in that period.
Pay TV earnings were off 7.8% to $7.1 million and employment fell to 178 slots from 202. Animation earnings jumped from $2.3 million to $10.2 million and employment jumped to 85 from 39 with the union proclaiming that it now reps writers on virtually every primetime animated TV show.
The most upbeat results showed residuals rising more than 20% to $177.8 million with the largest increases in foreign free TV and basic cable.
"It should not be surprising that these very active areas are the focus of the upcoming negotiations," the report noted. "While residual dollars collected have increased, the amount to individual writers has not. The increase is due to, in large part, more programming time, both domestically and internationally. Consequently, there is more product used and more writers paid; however, writers are not paid more."
The report does not cover the approximately 3,000 members of the Gotham-based Writers Guild of America East organization. The two guilds jointly negotiate contracts, and their current three-year pact with the Assn. of Motion Picture & Television Producers expires next May.
Many observers believe the negotiations will be difficult. Guild officials have been meeting for more than a year to work on proposals but have not yet received all the data they need from producers to formulate a contract proposal.
