SAG-AFTRA talks collapse after joint proposal – The Hollywood Reporter

Ted Sarandos

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Talks between SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP broke down on Wednesday over an additional “tax” the actor’s guild was proposing to impose on every streaming subscriber, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said.

Sarandos was one of four CEOs, including Bob Iger, David Zaslav, and Donna Langley, who were involved in negotiations with the Writers Guild of America and were recently meeting with SAG-AFTRA.

Speaking at a Bloomberg conference on Thursday, Sarandos said they offered SAG-AFTRA a “success-based bonus,” which he said was similar to a writers’ deal, but cost studios four to five times more.

“That was rejected and the counter was this tax on each subscriber and before that it was a tax on all revenues, where the union would basically take a certain amount of money for each subscriber of the service,” Sarandos said.

“This problem that we resolved with the writers was not only accepted into the deal, it was ratified by a 99 percent majority of the Writers Guild vote. So I know that all of these guilds are not created equal and that they all have different needs and more tailored needs, but “As I said, that’s what worked to reward success, which is what we agreed on. But taxing our revenue or per subscriber, with no insight into revenue per subscriber or anything, we felt like we were a bridge too far to This adds to the depth of the negotiations.”

AMPTP announced on Wednesday that negotiations between the two parties had been “suspension,” while saying that “the gap between AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA is too great.”

SAG-AFTRA sent a letter to members telling them that the studios had withdrawn from talks with the union and accused them of using “bully tactics.” “[The studios] He deliberately misrepresented to the press the cost of the above proposal – overestimating it by 60 percent.

Sarandos added while he and the other CEOs were at the table in the latest negotiations, all the studios were deeply invested in the process. He added that he and others are committed to reaching an agreement, as long as the talks progress. But he said the talks that took place on Wednesday evening “were not consistent or progressive.”

“It was just the four of us at the table, but everyone was deeply involved in this every day, and approached it with the same urgency with which we tried to open production during coronavirus. “We understand that a deal has to be made, and the one thing that makes these deals take so long sometimes is that this is the only deal we’re going to make,” Sarandos said.

“This has been a very difficult time to do this, and the goal here is to get people back to work. The goal is to open up the city. This is not only hurting our industry, it is hurting every other business that supports our industry,” he added.

More is coming.