are there anyway? Who's working. Who's not. How much money are they making?
Just how many writing jobs per year in TV and Motion pictures are there anyway? Who's working. Who's not. How much money are they making?
Insider:
So, let's talk about what your statistics indicate about the job market for writers.
Slocum:
First, let me give you some general numbers about employment levels and the number of people employed and how much they earn. There are generally around just under 4000, let's say around 3850 writers, employed in a given year.
Insider:
Now is this for just films?
Slocum:
This is films and TV. This is all based on WG west, and our total membership's just about 7900. And with about 3850 writers employed in a given year, that would come out just under 50% which is pretty standard history over the years. It pretty much maintains about 50% employment in a given calendar year.
Insider:
When you talk about being employed, what does it mean ,specifically, to not be employed?
Slocum:
They are not paid in that given year as writers. They're earning the living some other way.
Insider:
Could they be working outside of TV and film?
Slocum:
There would be a few hundred writers that are working in the low-budget film area or in some TV series which would be sorta fringe-type television series-generally game shows or talk shows that might not be WGA-covered for writers. Many of those (writers) will become WGA-covered on their future employment. They're starting in the low-budget area which we don't cover yet.
Insider:
But even those who are finding work, how successfully are they doing?
Slocum:
The figure for 1993 was the top half of that half, the top 25% of the membership, or the top 50% of the working membership of that year, made over $62,000. So that's called the median (average) statistically. So that is probably a good measure of the size group that's making a living on a continuing basis from this. They might make $62,000 this year, but they might have been part of the zero group last year. Just to put the 50% (employed) in perspective, if you look back over a five-year period, the 50% rises to about 80% being paid to write at some point during the five-year period. people are in and out of that (50%) group fairly liberally year to year.
You know, if you're a screenwriter, you might write a script for a year and get paid-not get paid in one calendar year (while working on the script) but get paid in the next one. Now the bottom half of the working group, below $62,000, goes all the way down to the guy who got $5000 for an option or got a couple hundred dollars payment for some reason. And on the other end of the people who are above $62,000, it certainly goes up into the millions, though the number of million dollar screenwriters is relatively small.
Insider:
What type of percentage are we talking here?
Slocum:
We're probably talking about the top 1% of the membership is anywhere near a million dollars a year. And that includes both screenwriters and television executive producers, both of whom can get up in to that high 6 figure range per year, or even into the seven figure threshold. But it's in the dozens which is the top 1%, and even the top 1% probably gets pretty close down to like $600,000 or something-quite a bit away from a million (a year). But the one point I make to people is that one reason that million dollar script sales make the trade papers is because they're pretty rare. They think, "oh this is the one that got reported and there are ten others," when in fact it's rare enough that it's in the newspaper. People need to keep that in mind.
Insider:
What's the makeup of women in the guild?
Slocum:
Generally, women are approximately 22% of the membership and at approximately 22% of the working membership also. They do tend to get paid less than male writers on the whole-approximately 80% of what a male writer would get. The difference does come though in the pay rate.
Insider:
Any reason?
Slocum:
Well, that's, of course, a subject of great speculation, and since you asked, the guild's posture typically is that there's bias against women writers-as we would also say there is against older writers and against minority writers. And the guild has traditionally paid some attention to that problem. The report from which these numbers generally are flowing -there are a series of reports that have been put out over the years-were (created) exactly to address those questions. And so the guild has highlighted those issues at different times. The general posture is, basically, the same issue of women getting paid less and the "glass ceiling" kind of thing, and we are just asserting that same kind of phenomena is going on in this industry.
Insider:
Is there a greater percentage of women unemployed than employed?
Slocum:
Same percent. The working/non-working % really doesn't change by that. Now it is true that minorities are underrepresented in terms or employment-even compared to their membership. Women in the population are 50-50, right?, with men. Well, it's already been (said) that it's 20-80 in the membership, and it maintains 20-80 for women in the working membership too in a given year. So that could be high as 50-50, right?
Now to a certain extent, women are not in the labor force as much as they are in the population because it's still statistically true that more women stay home. So it's not going to be 50-50 inherently, but it arguably could be higher than 80-20. But at least they are just as represented among the working members as they are among the membership generally. Minorities are underrepresented in the working membership compared to the overall membership so they are over-represented in that bottom half. They also have an earnings gap like the women do where they are paid less than the non-minority writers.
Insider:
Do minorities have an easier time finding employment in either of the two mediums?
Slocum:
In the case of minorities, on the point of television versus film, the problem is very extreme in the area of future films. Television does tend to provide a greater share of employment for minorities than film. It tends to be clustered around the black-cast sitcom. There certainly are writers who work outside of those particular shows, (but) black-employment TV tends to be linked to the black-cast show. But in feature films, it's very difficult for blacks-and blacks are the major ethnic minority that we're talking about-(though) the same statistics apply to all minorities.
Insider:
So they're underrepresented in both TV and film?
Slocum:
Yeah, and in general they're underrepresented in employment compared to membership, and the membership is underrepresented compared to the population.
Insider:
Is it that minorities don't strive for these types of jobs as much?
Slocum:
I don't know, I can't answer that. I'm not aware of any information about the propensity of particular groups to seek out screenwriting. We would suggest that the general disinclination to tell stories of their culture on the mainstream media could have a discouraging effect on them seeking employment. And as a result, there comes a viscous circle. If they don't seek it (writing jobs), then their stories continue to be less likely to be sold and that continues to suggest to minorities that this is not a career. It becomes a vicious circle.
Insider:
Is it at all easier for minorities to start finding jobs if they start at a younger age?
Slocum:
I don't know that the story for new entrants into the writing career is any different than for all new entrants. The disadvantage that they're at is no different than the disadvantage that they'll have their whole career.
In general, I would say that the "youth culture" assumption that people have about Hollywood is a little bit of a myth. Most people would suggest that the hottest time for a writing career is in you twenties. And that your 30s is good, 40s is horrendous, 50s you're out of it, 60s you're gone. The average age of a new member of the writer's guild, which means they've gotten their first job, guess.
Insider:
Not sure.
Slocum:
35.
Insider:
That seems a little high.
Slocum:
The requirement for getting in the guild is your first sale or employment to a guild signatory company. Now you do not have to already be a member to make that sale or get that job. There's no inhibition like there is in SAG (Screen Actor's Guild).
With the Writer's Guild, if you can get the work, you're in. So the measure of the age of a new member is really measuring when people are entering the business at a professional level, (when) they're getting their first job for a guild signatory company which, excluding some of the lowest-budget producers, is most of the business.
The average age of a new member entering the Writer's Guild, is 35. So that means two things. First of all, it means that there are just as many people in their 40s as there are in their 20s getting their first job.
It also means that it's not primarily people in their 20s-which is usually considered the "hot age"-you know, the "youth culture" sense-and it's a myth. The people who are getting in the guild typically have whatever college education they had-which is fairly common among guild members-and they usually have been paying their dues for ten years, which would roughly account for post-college to about their mid thirties. They've pretty much been out there trying to do it, trying to make it work, learning the craft for as much as ten years.
The overnight success are really people who have been paying their dues-yeah, they're an overnight success after ten years. And now, they look like an overnight success because their first script got sold or something. But, you know, again the people who got attention in the press and whatnot for being "young" and "new" and "hot" are getting that attention because there are actually relatively few of them. The workaday writer is really starting their career in their 30s and going well through their 50s and even into their 60s with their earnings.
Insider:
So if the "youth culture" perception is a myth, is ageism also unsubstantiated?
Slocum:
Well, there is an age discrimination claim for writers in their 60s and older.
Insider:
Is 60s the most common cutoff?
Slocum:
Yeah, it's not really 50s nor 40s. It really would be in their 60s. It's difficult to put any real quantitative data behind this, but I'll tell you that it does seem to me that there is a baby boom emphasis if there's anything. That may contribute to two things. It may have, over the last 20 years, contributed to the sense of a "youth culture," because the baby boom was young and young-minded as they grew through their 40s and entering their 50s-the front edge of the baby boom is just pushing age 50 now.
So there's a little bit of a baby boom emphasis which may have contributed to the "youth culture" sensibility in the last 20 years. And it also may have contributed to the ageism sense over the last ten years. As they have pushed through their 40s, they (baby boomers) will have taken some of the jobs that people older than them might have held longer if the baby boom wasn't pushing their way in. Perhaps more than the generation before them, they're gonna hold onto their job!
Insider:
Does that mean the median age of a new member is going up?
Slocum:
The median age of a new member has been very stable- about 35-and I would expect that to remains the same. The average age of an employed member, though, may get older.
Insider:
So what is the average age of a working writer?
Slocum:
It's getting older and my sense is, if I were to guess, I would say that it's probably 40 or 42. I would suggest that that's probably gonna get older with the baby boom for a while. And-this is a subjective social reading on my part-Generation X may be less assertive in terms of pushing their way into the writing career in place of some of their baby boom elders-I think (they will be) less assertive than the baby boom was in pushing out their elders, the generation before them. But I don't know, that's sort of my subjective reading of the data because it's not a hard, quantitative, proven thing.
Insider:
Just as blacks seem to be pigeonholed into the black-cast sitcom, do women writers suffer from similar stereotypes?
Slocum:
Not really. I'm unaware of any trend like that for women.
Insider:
Does that pigeonholing occur in an other form?
Slocum:
I think the only one, really, is the minorities (pigeonholed into television). I think that's the only one like that I know. Otherwise, I'm not aware of any skew based on genre. But that's not a particularly easy type of analysis to do, and that's not something we try to do. I wouldn't expect to find anything in that analysis; the black-cast sitcom analysis sorta suggest itself, just because you can see it, you know. But that doesn't appear to be the case with any of the other groups.
Insider:
Do the statistics suggest that either TV or film is the easier medium to enter as a new writer?
Slocum:
In general, there are approximately 2500 television jobs in a year, let's say 2600. 2600 members will report television earnings, so I'm gonna say that there's 2600 television jobs. And there are probably about 1600 feature film jobs, writing jobs. Now that totals 4000-so that's higher than the other number I gave you, 3800, because some people do both, and so that's why it doesn't add up. But what you can see there is not quite a 2-to-1 in favor of TV, but almost. And that's the balance of work in the industry; there are almost two TV jobs for every one feature film job. And as a result, most people do come through TV, but it's because of that (2 to 1 ratio) not because of any bias for how to enter the business or whatever. The business, in general, is biased towards TV.
Insider:
Because there's more opportunities on television?
Slocum:
There's more production for TV. There are more different scripts produced in TV. How many movies are there in a given year? Probably 400-maybe 200 by the majors and 200 by independent companies. And there are probably 3,000 television episodes or TV movies produced, based on all the networks and syndication. That's even more extreme in terms of the ratio, 3000 to 400. That's not ten to one, but it's getting closer to ten to one.
Insider:
What about a difference in pay between the two?
Slocum:
Screenwriters are paid more. Let me give you average numbers first. I said that the average writer makes $62,000.
That includes both TV and film earnings. The average television writer, these are 1993 numbers, reports $52,000 instead of $62,000. And from screen, the average member would report $50,000-actually it's almost equal and actually screen's a little lower-that's interesting to see.
Insider:
So some writers make money in both fields in the same year?
Slocum:
Right. Because some, not most but some (about 500 people), work in both that they are going to be reporting in both of those columns, and so the average for including both kinds of earnings raises it to an average of $62,000. And that's why it's higher than either number which would be sort of an unusual thing.
Let's look at earnings a different way. In television and feature films, the total amount earned for all writers covered by the guild contract is going to be abut $240 million for feature films and another $240 million, approximately, for television for a total of about $480 million. And the fact that they're equal, but we had almost 2-to-1 difference in employment, shows that screenwriters are getting paid more. Now it gets a little tricky statistically here.
You have the earnings $52,000 median from TV, $50,000 median for screen. That would not quite make sense with these numbers, except to say that there are more high paid screenwriters that are contributing to this total. And their earnings are not reflected in that $50,000 screen number because it's the median and that's a subtle statistical thing. Suffice it to say, the top screenwriters are paid more.
Insider:
And how does all that measure up for women and minorities?
Slocum:
I don't have that. I would say that the earnings disadvantage that is generally reported for women and minorities would suggest that it's more difficult for women and minorities to break through into the top earning groups.
Insider:
So does the writer's guild findings cover anything other than TV and film, or are other job possibilities considered?
Slocum:
This does include, in some of these statistics, pay TV which is a small group of 100 or 200 who consistently work in pay TV. It actually includes a little trickle of radio writers. But that's all really a footnote. It doesn't really deal with the (overall) numbers. The guild covers the mainstream film and television industries; we cover a little bit of local radio here (in LA), we cover local promotion writers, we cover PBS writers -a few of whom are out here, some of whom are in New York-but that's all really a footnote. The other thing we cover is informational programming and interactive programming. And there's a small number, in the dozens, who are working in those areas.
Insider:
I would assume interactive jobs are a growing percentage of the business.
Slocum:
It's growing for two reasons. One, the industry is growing. And number two, the guild coverage within the industry is also growing. And it's an area where we are expanding our jurisdiction as it makes sense for the individual writers and the individual companies. We have not asserted broad jurisdiction yet in that industry. We're working company by company and writer by writer as it makes sense for every employment to cover it.
It's a new area-there's far more hype that there is actual employment or actual revenue in the interactive area. The joke, although as with most jokes there's a kernel of truth in it, is that there's been more money made on seminars about interactive than there has been on actual interactive industry. And that's no doubt true. It points to the fact that it's a baby industry in terms of actual activity. But many of our writer members are actually at the forefront of the whole design and writing stage of that industry, and so we've had some of the pioneers of that be guild members. So we are in (that industry) in an early way.
Insider:
Is interactive a legitimate way in the eyes of the guild to become a member?
Slocum:
Yes. We do have a handful of members who have become members of the guild because of their interactive writing. That's definitely a possibility.
Insider:
Do your statistics reveal any trends we should look for in the future? Will there be an eventual evening out of minorities and women in relation to the entire guild makeup?
Slocum:
I would say that I don't see any trend changing the dynamics in terms of the composition of the membership. There are approximately 2 members joining every business day in the guild. And that's been fairly steady over the last few years. It's a slower rate of growth than ten years ago, but it's a fairly constant rate of growth over the last five years. It ends up being about 10 to 12% of the work/force is new (members). But that does keep the pressure on in terms of employment levels. And if anything, the major trend recently-remember I said that 3,800 is pretty constant-and with that 10 to 12% being new members every year, that has created, in the last five years, a tighter job market, a more competitive job market.
Insider:
In other words, more people are joining than exist potential jobs for them.
Slocum:
Right. Now we're hoping that with these new networks on the air that there will be an increase in the number of jobs as well, but it is slow going. There's a constant influx of new writers in the industry.