SAG-AFTRA Reaches Three-Year Deal on TV Animation
SAG-AFTRA has reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on a three-year deal covering TV animation.
The deal, announced on Monday, covers animated programs produced for television, including network TV, basic cable and streaming platforms.
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The new three-year agreement, which will need to be approved by the SAG-AFTRA executive committee, will apply retroactively to July 1 and extend through June 30, 2023. The performers union said terms of the deal include gains in its recently ratified master contract covering feature film and primetime TV. If approved by the committee, the deal will be submitted for ratification to “affected members” — those who have worked on the contract.
Those gains include wage increases of 2.5% in the first year, 3% in the second year and 3% in the third year; a 1% increase in the contribution rate to the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan and optional wage diversions in years two and three that allow the union to shift .5% from the wage increase to the contribution rate for the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan or the SAG Pension Plan/AFTRA Retirement Fund.
The new deal includes a 26% improvement in residuals for high-budget animated programs made for subscription streaming services like Amazon and Hulu, and reduction of the budget threshold that triggers high-budget coverage for half-hour animated programs made for subscription streaming services from $550,000 to $500,000.
The union said it needed to make a concession to the AMPTP by changing the broadcast syndication residual from a fixed residual to a revenue-based residual at 6% of distributor’s gross receipts — the same formula that applies to content moving to basic cable.
“The new formula was the key concession that paid for the increase in streaming residuals, an exchange that positions SAG-AFTRA animation voice actors to grow their residuals in the fastest growing area of their work while increasing opportunities for animated programs to be exhibited in broadcast syndication, which is a declining market,” the union said.
“This is a future-focused deal that builds off our successful television and film contract negotiations and even breaks new ground in the application of scale minimums to animated programs made for subscription streaming services, a very important bread-and-butter issue for our members and a strategic breakthrough that is unique to this contract,” SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris said.
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