Hollywood’s Top Earners are Worried Too: 'We All Feel Lucky to be Employed'
Industry winners, even those in the seven figures, tell me about fears for their next job and for the next generation
Anna* is a high-level TV producer whose company has an overall deal with a studio. She makes $450,000 a year, plus episodic fees and backend payments for a show that was recently on the air. Anna has two kids in private school, a home in an affluent part of town, recently bought a “very nice electric car” and built out a cabana in her backyard. She may not be a household name, but in the ways that matter to the people who work in this town, she embodies the Hollywood dream. (*Everyone in the story has a pseudonym or is anonymous to protect their identity.)
Anna started out as an assistant and worked her way up, slogging seven days a week for a decade until she rose to executive vice president of development, eventually managing to get several shows on air — including one “life-changing” network show that ran for years. It’s the reason why each of her children will have $300,000 to $400,000 in their 529 savings accounts by the time they get to college, and why she and her husband are well-positioned to retire comfortably in their early to mid-60s.
But when Anna looks out at the next generation, she is “so scared for them. I’m scared for our whole business,” she tells me by phone, after writing in to my Salary Confessions portal. “I don’t know how you make it right now. I understand how you can have a few projects and get those projects sold. I don’t see financial stability . . . I don’t see how it’s sustainable when [the business is] treating people like they’re disposable.”
Because the network show she developed wound up selling “massively” around the world in secondary markets, that backend plus episodic fees “have been the real difference makers to my income and stability,” Anna says. “It's an argument for the old TV model: Get a show on network, with a 20-episode order each year, and you make the kind of money I dreamed of making in this career. You don’t find that on streaming any longer, at least in my experience.”
You hear the toll of the Streaming Wars (2010s-present) through the stories of support staffers and mid-career execs fretting over their futures, but even at the higher echelons of working Hollywood, the ones who have Made It, they too worry about what will be left at the end of the algorithmic rat race.
In this Series Business, I talk to a number of the highest earners who wrote in to Salary Confessions — whose annual income is as much as $1.6 million — to learn more about the way they live and their outlook on the business. In this issue, you’ll learn:
Why they’re afraid of ageism and demotions in their next career phase
Damage from the diminishment of overall producer deals
The cadre of quiet winners in this time of economic uncertainty
How it feels to make $1.6 million a year — in cable TV
The anxiety of the unknown future
Why one producer believes working for a “difficult agent” is the best path to success
How power shifted from studios to streamers
How to rekindle the apprenticeship network that built Hollywood careers
As ever: If you want to tell us more about yourself, share your Salary Confessions through this Google Form. (Amazingly, more than 100 of you have written to me so far and your candor is eye-opening. Thanks, always, for trusting me with your stories.)