Doctor Who Breaks a Huge Writers’ Tradition With New Payment Model

Summary:

• Doctor Who is one of the biggest TV series in the UK, dating back to 1963 and still active today.
• BBC has recently partnered up with Disney Plus to continue working on the show.
• After the partnership was in place, Doctor Who changed the payment model for its writers, cutting off the residuals.

When a show runs for over 60 years and becomes a national institution, it creates its own rules and traditions of employment in the industry. Huge productions of genres like sci-fi require a lot of effort from different professionals, and Doctor Who was one of the biggest employers for those willing to work in TV productions.

As many predicted, Disney's involvement in the show changed everything. While fans were mostly concerned about the quality of the content and the overkill of action scenes thanks to the immensely increased budgets, entertainment professionals in the UK began to wonder how this might affect their workflow.

With new details revealed by Deadline about the new payment model for all writers involved in the production of Doctor Who, it's clearer than ever that the changes are not going to be pleasant. What makes it even sadder is that these changes are coming through the back door right after the WGA strike settlement.

How Doctor Who Writers Are Paid?

As reported, the previously established payment model for Doctor Who writers involved a smaller upfront fee and residuals for each rerun of each episode the writer was involved with. Given the scale of Doctor Who's popularity, the reruns of the show were almost constant on British television and made a lot of money.

Now, however, the writers are said to have received a larger upfront payment with no rights to residuals. While there is no direct evidence that the change in the model was forced by Disney representatives, it's hard to resist the urge to connect the dots.

TV writer Sophie Petzal also shared the following insight into the situation on her X (formerly known as Twitter) account:

“It begins. Doctor Who, a show that famously could pay your mortgage, is now no longer paying writers residuals. <...> Coming up, you were told, if you wanted to work on shows were so often retransmitted that the residuals would pay for you in your old age, you needed to do a Midsomer Murders and a Doctor Who,” she wrote.

Now the British writers of Doctor Who will have to work under new conditions without the protection of the WGA. The strikes may have ended in success for the union, but the studios seem to continue to find ways to work around the rules that were set up to make more money for themselves.

As of now, the Writers Guild of Great Britain is urging writers to come forward to review the contracts they have been given and discuss new solutions to avoid a setback in working conditions. Hopefully, the upfront fee contracts will be well justified or changed for the better.

Source: Deadline, X (formerly known as Twitter)