MovieChat Forums > Adam-12 (1968) Discussion > Residuals?

Residuals?

posted 10 years ago by slackersmom
7 replies | jump to latest

I remember a conversation elsewhere about Adam-12 (I think) that the gist of it was that back in the day, networks/production companies never thought twice about shows getting re-run very much, so royalties (or residuals) were strictly limited-- I think to only six airings after first-run, believe it or not. And this was apparently true until at least the "mid-'70s." (Thank you, Wikipedia!) So it's possible that for a lot of older shows--including A-12--no matter how often the shows have aired on TVLand, MeTV, or any other network, the actors aren't getting a penny. I wonder what the deal is with the actors who play our fave officers? Maybe at some point there was some sort of contract or agreement put in place to deal with the explosion of reruns on these "retro" channels-- I hope? As many times as this show--all 174 episodes-- have aired over the years, it'd be a shame if the actors weren't being compensated in some way.

[–] charcas67 10 years ago

Resdiuals are negotiated as part of the contract Screen Actors Guild has with the Producers Association. As we know Kent McCord was very active at SAG so hopefully when he was one of their elected officers this was an issue he worked on and succeeded in his fight.

6 years ago I worked briefly at SAG in the residuals department and every quarter residuals checks were issued and older series like Hawaii 5 0 paid out residuals so hopefully the actors on Adam 12 were paid for rerun airings and DVD sales.

[–] slackersmom 10 years ago

I hope you're right. Just think, Adam-12 has been playing on MeTV three or four times a day for the past year or two (or even longer, for all I know). Even if the residual is small, at least it's something. And consistent.

[–] seldon913 10 years ago

On the yahoo home page there was a headline about Dawn Wells talking about getting things past the censors for Gilligan's Island, so I pulled up the actual interview

http://www.today.com/video/today/56063686#56063686

and toward the end she states that none of them got anything from all of those reruns, but some exec at the network has made about $90 mil.

[–] slackersmom 10 years ago

Thanks for the link. I know I'd heard something a while back that on one of these old shows, one of the women was married to a lawyer or agent or something, and she's the only one who negotiated to get residuals for the then-unknown concept of repeats (or videocassettes, dvds, etc.). I thought it was Dawn Wells, but apparently not. Anyway, I would hope that the situation was at least somewhat rectified after the fact.

[–] seldon913 10 years ago

Not sure about any of the females, but I remember reading when Don Adams' contract came up for renewal on Get Smart he was given a choice of a pay increase or residuals. He chose residuals and did very well on the deal.

[–] cadarus 10 years ago

The actress was Audrey Meadows from The Honeymooners, she had a shrewd agent

who realized the potential of content reruns even in the infant stages of tv.

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]