All of the superpowers in the world could not keep Heroes on air for more than four seasons but it still had a strong run thanks to talented actors who brought the characters and their stories to life each week on NBC, in the first place. Much like the production of Heroes, many other television shows would likely not succeed without a great and well paid cast. Actors are generally among the most essential elements necessary to complete a movie or television show, so it’s understandable that actors (especially SAG actors, since union dues are paid for a reason) should expect to be paid reasonably for their contributions to these productions.

However, a 2009 deal that involved the Screen Actors Guild (aka SAG) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) caused many actors to be in a frenzy about their wages. In a nutshell, the proposed deal included changes to residual payments for reruns of TV shows that are shown online. For those of you who are wondering “what are residual payments?” I’ll sum it up like this: Residuals are payments that actors receive in addition to their regular wages.

Under the new deal, SAG actors would not receive residual payments for the first few months that a TV show is online and then would receive somewhere around $30 or so in residuals as the TV show continues to rerun in new media markets (online) for about one year.

On one angle, I can understand why many actors would not like this type of deal because one of the benefits of being a SAG member is that it comes with perks that many working citizens in almost any profession take for granted such as pensions, health insurance and having worker’s rights advocates on your side. You can also get paid really well by working on productions with SAG contracts, especially those high profile projects like Heroes, The Mentalist or House for example. Before this deal, an actor who landed a role on one network TV show received $800 for working on this production and then earned over $3,000 within a two-year period after reruns of the same TV show brought the actor $2,700 in residual payments.

Using this scenario again, the new deal with AMPTP and SAG that many actors urged their peers to vote “no” on in 2009 would provide the actor with less residual payment amounts, possibly bringing this worker’s overall earnings to well under $1000. Now, this is where the cheerleader (oh, that sweet Claire Bennet) gets screwed right up the butt like she’s one of the supporting characters in Caveh Zahedi’s I am a Sex Addict. If SAG actors strike over residuals for online reruns and delay the shooting schedule on TV productions, then what happens when these actors cannot get paid at all because the shows are getting canceled due to low ratings after TV fans get tired of waiting for it to come back on air and changed the channel to ……I don’t know The Hills or ……Real Housewives of Atlanta?

I’ll tell you what happens….the actors now do not have a job! Good luck complaining about residuals when the day rates aren’t even there because the show is gone. This is what could happen (especially for actors who are in the midst of building their careers to the point where they can demand million dollar per-episode deals like Ray Romano, and then residuals won’t even matter) if actors stay focused on one trivial factor such as residuals rather than considering the bigger picture.

TV and the internet are two different mediums, which may call for a significant modification to payments made to SAG actors, including residuals. Some actors may not like it, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Does anyone even take into consideration that TV studios may not be bringing in the same amount of advertising revenue online that they bring in on the tube? Maybe this revenue will improve in the future for the “new media” sector but right now, online advertising is still fairly new as networks and studios try to figure out how to monetize their video streaming content (or downloads or whatever they are offering to television fans via the internet) for maximum profits.

A 30 second commercial on American Idol went for $745,000 in 2007 but the same numbers may not transfer over into the online video streaming world, even if it's a rerun of TV shows like Grey's Anatomy and House. I actually like the fact that many network TV shows rerun online within a few days of airing. It gives TV fans the chance to check out an episode they may have missed due to work or social schedules and other responsibilities.

If the studios are not making a lot of money online, what makes a SAG actor think he or she is entitled to receive large residuals for online reruns of popular TV shows?

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