SAG-AFTRA Health Plan to Pay $15 Million to Resolve Ed Asner’s Class Action Lawsuit

SAG-AFTRA has once again – and for the last time – extended its dues-relief program for members experiencing Covid-related financial hardship. The union first began offering Covid dues relief in March 2020 during the earliest days of the pandemic. All along, however, it has encouraged members who can pay on time to do so.

SAG-AFTRA and the Joint Policy Committee of the advertising industry have agreed to end their Covid safety protocols for commercial productions effective May 11.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer New York is poised to dramatically increase its film tax incentive from $420 million a year to $700 million, as it looks to stave off competition from New Jersey and Georgia. Gov. Kathy Hochul announced an agreement Thursday night on a $229 billion budget, after weeks of negotiations with state lawmakers. Among many other provisions, the budget will increase the size of the film tax credit program, as well as raise the credit percentage from 25% to 30%, bringing it in line with rival states. The program will also be extended to 2034, according to a source familiar with the conceptual agreement.

Charlie Collier, who took over as President of Roku Media in late October, had a pay package that topped $53 million in the last three months of 2022.

Moving on in more ways than one. Halsey’s $11.95 million home is officially for sale amid her split from boyfriend Alev Aydin.

.”The series is produced by John Wells Productions (JWP) in association with Warner Bros. Television, where JWP is under an overall deal.“We’re tremendously excited to be producing Sherman Payne’s thrilling adaptation of Emperor of Ocean Park, and to be associated with his talented team,” Wells added.

MGM+ is moving forward with its series adaptation of suspense thriller Emperor of Ocean Park.

Morgan Wallen’s last-minute cancelled concert in Mississippi is now a legal matter.

began on March 20 with several issues that needed to be addressed. At the top of the list was the issue of compensation for streaming TV shows and films and the abuse of mini-rooms in which studios require writers with a TV show pitch to assemble a writers’ room at scale pay to produce scripts before the pitch is even greenlit.More than 9,000 WGA members voted on April 17 to authorize their leaders to order a strike if a deal was not met and a drastic change was not in the future.

William Earl SAG-AFTRA’s national board has lent its support to the WGA as the latter guild buckles down for a last sprint of negotiations next week in the days leading up to the May 1 expiration of film and TV writers’ master contract with Hollywood’s major employers. “SAG-AFTRA stands strongly in support and solidarity with the members of the Writers Guild of America who are engaged in contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. It is long past time for the studios, streamers, and other employers in the entertainment industry to remove roadblocks to fair and equitable wages and working conditions, and to agree to terms that reflect the unique worth and contribution of creative talent and workers, without whom the industry would not exist,” read a resolution passed Saturday by a unanimous vote of SAG-AFTRA’s national board.

SAG-AFTRA’s National Board voted unanimously today to approve a resolution “strongly in support” of the WGA in its ongoing negotiations for a new film and TV contract. “It is long past time for the studios, streamers, and other employers in the entertainment industry to remove roadblocks to fair and equitable wages and working conditions,” the resolution states, “and to agree to terms that reflect the unique worth and contribution of creative talent and workers, without whom the industry would not exist.”

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Paramount Global fired back on Wednesday in the battle over “South Park” streaming rights, accusing Warner Bros. Discovery of withholding $52 million in license fees. Warner Bros. Discovery sued Paramount in February, alleging that the company had breached its $500 million licensing deal with HBO Max by diverting “South Park” specials to Paramount+. On Wednesday, Paramount filed a counterclaim, alleging that HBO Max got everything it bargained for under the agreement, but has nevertheless withheld two required payments of $26 million apiece. The countersuit, filed in New York Supreme Court, also argues that the unpaid fees cover the 300-plus episodes of “South Park” now streaming on HBO Max, which are not in dispute in the lawsuit.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Amazon has been awarded $35.3 million in state tax incentives for TV production, including the largest amount ever granted by the state of California for a single film or TV season. “Citadel,” a big-budget spy thriller set to debut on April 28, was awarded $25 million to relocate to California from the U.K. for its second season. The show is expected to pay $119 million in “qualified” expenditures — which include below-the-line workers and California vendors — making it the biggest show ever lured from out of state by the credit. The Hollywood Reporter has called the show “pricey and troubled,” noting that its first-season budget soared above $200 million due to a change in the creative team and extensive reshoots.

A US judge seemed to indicate last week that he isn’t convinced that an ongoing legal battle over who has access to YouTube’s Content ID system should be certified as a class action.This all relates to the lawsuit originally filed by musician Maria Schneider. She, and other independent creators, take issue with the fact that – while bigger copyright owners and content aggregators get access to YouTube’s Content ID rights management system – independent creators and smaller rights owners do not.They either have to ally with a bigger entity that has Content ID access, or manually file takedown notices in relation to any videos uploaded to YouTube that contain music or other copyright protected material without licence.

Donald Trump still collects a hefty retirement income from his entertainment-industry past, according to financial disclosure forms that he submitted this week to qualify for the 2024 presidential election.The former president receives between $100,000 and $1 million in yearly pension from the Screen Actor’s Guild. The details were first disclosed on the Citizens for Ethics website on Friday.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA will begin negotiations on a new basic agreement on June 7, the union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers announced on Thursday. The union will be the third to enter bargaining this year, after the Writers Guild of America and the Directors Guild of America. The SAG-AFTRA contract expires on June 30, leaving time for just a few weeks of talks before the deadline. “Both the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA are approaching this process as an opportunity to engage in thoughtful and interactive conversations that result in a mutually-beneficial deal,” the union and the AMPTP said in a joint statement on Thursday.

SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents the studios in labor talks, announced on Thursday that negotiations on a new bargaining agreement will begin on June 7. “Both the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA are approaching this process as an opportunity to engage in thoughtful and interactive conversations that result in a mutually beneficial deal,” the two sides said in a joint statement.

SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have agreed to begin formal contract negotiations on June 7. The guild’s current contract expires June 30.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Mo’Nique has filed a lawsuit alleging that Paramount and CBS owe her millions in profit participation from her show “The Parkers.” The show ran for five seasons on UPN, from 1999 through 2004. The show’s creators — Ralph Farquhar, Sara Finney-Johnson and Vida Spears — filed a similar lawsuit last June, alleging that CBS had engaged in various forms of “financial malfeasance” to artificially inflate expenses and suppress profit payments. The network settled that case out of court in November. Mo’Nique, whose legal name is Monique Hicks, filed her own suit on Wednesday, repeating many of the claims in the show creators’ lawsuit.

SAG-AFTRA will no longer be the only Hollywood union that leases building space for its headquarters, as the actors guild announced that it has closed a deal for a $46.6 million purchase of a new headquarters in North Hollywood. “After multiple sessions with my executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and CFO Arianna Ozzanto, it was determined that SAG-AFTRA was now in a financially sound position to pursue this goal,” SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said in a statement. “National secretary-treasurer and finance committee chair Joely Fisher next took the lead in pursuit of a worthwhile real estate investment,” Drescher continued.