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 new TV Animation agreements cover animated programs produced for television, including network television, basic cable and streaming platforms such as Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime.
The new deal includes a 26 per cent 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.
Those gains include wage increases of 2.5 per cent in the first year, three per cent in the second year and three per cent in the third year; a 1 per cent 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. Five per cent of the wage increase to the contribution rate for the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan or the SAG Pension Plan/AFTRA Retirement Fund.
The new deal also includes an animation-specific gain in the payments for “interstitial bits” – animated programs less than two minutes in length – increasing the required cycle payments between 5.4 per cent and 20 per cent in exchange for including new media as a permitted exhibition platform.
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 six per cent of distributor’s gross receipts — the same formula that applies to content moving to basic cable.
The terms of the tentative agreement will be presented to the Executive Committee of the SAG-AFTRA National Board and, pending Executive Committee approval, will be submitted for ratification by the affected members.