Here’s what Matt Weiner said about negotiations
I’m sorry, it was at the very end of the tape, I’ve been transcribing my fingers off. Matt talks really fast:
This is a business thing. I’m not renegotiating. My contract expired, I had a two year contract. And it just started. We did the whole season, won the Emmys, all this other stuff, and I just heard from them recently. And so we’re getting into it now. There’s no, this is the way it works all the time. It’s just very public, I guess, because people care about the show and want to know what’s going to happen. And it’s also, the business is changing so much, the cable business, all this other stuff, so there’s interest. But there’s no intrigue or anything to report, I have to be honest with you. I have every intention and desire to continue making this show with everybody at AMC, and that’s the plan. So we’re just going to hopefully, give me a contract for a couple of years so I can keep working.
So that’s from Matt’s lips to your ears.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Hope Mark Moses isn’t his agent …
October 30th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
I don’t know anything about these things, but is it a possibility that HBO jumps into the process? I could see HBO giving the show a little more freedom to do what they want. Also, no Viagra commercials.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
I’ve heard that Showtime covets the series …
October 31st, 2008 at 12:06 am
^I don’t think Showtime could do what HBO could do with this show as far as the money is concerned. I get the impression that Showtime is still a pretty small fish in the cable TV sphere.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:52 am
It’s always so much less dramatic than the news reports make out.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:02 am
He doesn’t have a contract.
It’s just business, his show’s loved by the people who run Hollywood, and he’s free to negotiate through his very hungry agents. I am not concerned.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:40 am
Sorry, but this doesn’t contradict anything that was reported earlier this week. He is saying the right things (I want to stay at AMC), but the caveat is that all parties have to agree on a contract. If his agents are really asking for $10M, and AMC is offering in the $2.5M range (as reported), then something will have to give.
I’m a huge sports fan…countless times, we hear athletes say things like “I have every intention of re-signing with Team X,” and then when it doesn’t happen the player says, “Well that was MY intention, but Team X wasn’t willing to pay me fair market value, so it didn’t work out.”
I’m not panicking, nor trying to incite panic…I would hope that cooler heads will prevail here. Lionsgate has to know that they have caught lightning in a bottle with this show, and they don’t want to screw it up. Matt’s agents have to know that $10M is an absurd amount of money for a basic cable channel to be shelling out.
I think that they will work it out. I’m just saying that Matt’s comments in this post don’t preclude at the least some nasty negotiations.
October 31st, 2008 at 10:21 am
AMC has already committed to the series, no other networks are involved or can be involved. The question on hand is Matt Weiner’s personal contract, not the series location.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:02 am
This isn’t sports, tho. This isn’t some 20-something athlete who has no idea about business, this is Matt Weiner. The prinicpals want to work together, it’s to everyone’s advantage for this to work out. They’re only arguing about money. Quit worrying, everyone.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:03 am
Here’s a link for what Scott is talking about
http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/lionsgate-must-be-staffed-by-mad-men/
I hope this is just classic haggling b/c it is pretty ridiculous to ask for 4x the standard rate.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:08 am
“AMC has already committed to the series, no other networks are involved or can be involved. The question on hand is Matt Weiner’s personal contract, not the series location.”
If- and I understand it is a big if at this point- the negotiations do not meet a satisfying end for each of the parties, can’t another channel come in and rescue the show?
Hasn’t this happened before with other shows- jumping networks?
Also, can’t this be used as a bargaining chip? Example: “Hey, HBO and Showtime are interested in ponying up the dough and guaranteeing 5 seasons, what do you say to that?”
October 31st, 2008 at 11:09 am
AMC would be insane to let Weiner go. He’s Don Draper, hello!
October 31st, 2008 at 11:13 am
People keep refering to the Nikki Finke posting, so here again is the follow-up from Defamer:
http://defamer.com/5070166/
October 31st, 2008 at 11:15 am
If I am not mistaken, in the Project Runway move to Lifetime, Bravo was not offered first refusal. Bravo will be getting a big check from Magical Elves, because a judge ruled that they couldn’t just shop the show out willy nilly.
If AMC has already said they want the show, it will pretty difficult for them to shop it somewhere else. That is if there is a right of first refusal in their contract. (Apparently, Bravo’s was just implied, but it still held.)
October 31st, 2008 at 11:24 am
I see. I know very little about these negotiations. And I’m not trying to stir up trouble here. I would just hate to see AMC make a huge mistake and not pay him what he deserves and support the show. I’m sure people are looking at the signals given by them as well. This could be seen as a big red flag.
MW deserves to be paid at least 1/2 what Jim Carrey gets for his 3 months of work on a movie. And I’m sure MW works many times harder and has the potential to bring in just as much money over time. The syndication and DVD sales of this show alone will be more than what Jim Carrey’s latest movie will bring in.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:39 am
Be realistic though. It’s on AMC, it’s a small channel with relatively small ratings. If the going rate for a showrunner, a good one is $2.5 million then that’s what he should be getting maybe slightly more. $10 million or 4x the going rate is a little egotistical. MW seems more down to earth than that so I hope it’s not true that he is asking for that. And if it is what he asked for I’m hoping it’s just the start of good old fashioned haggling.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:54 am
AMC has already cut the deal with Lionsgate, so it would take extraordinary events for the show to land anywhere else.
And of course MW came in with a high asking price. It’s not only a bargaining position for himself, but also for the show. The more Lionsgate (and indirectly AMC) pay MW, the more likely they are to invest even more to promote the show (to try to recoup what they pay MW). More promotion for those S2 DVD sets, etc.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:57 am
Thanks, Karl…that makes me feel better. I like what is posted on the main page now. “We don’t know what’s really going on…you know that.”
Donny Brook - athletes don’t negotiate their own contracts, so it’s not about 20-somethings who don’t know anything about business. Their agents are the ones who both negotiate their contracts and (usually) tell them what to say to the press about it. Similar situation here, in that the reports are that the agents representing MW are the ones making the ridiculous demands. And that’s what they are…ridiculous. I love the show as much as anybody, and MW is a genius, but as latenac says, 4X the going rate for a small basic cable channel is absurd.
Again, I’m not panicking…MW will end up getting a substantial (and well-deserved) bump in pay, and AMC will continue to be able to claim ownership to the best show on TV. It will just be interesting to follow the negotiations, as this is just another area of the TV marketplace that is really just beginning to take form. You now have two major shows (The Closer on TNT and our beloved Mad Men) that have changed the way the marketplace looks at basic cable programming, so these negotiations could be about establishing a precedent.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Addendum: MW may also be thinking that while HBO is richer than AMC, the latter has a much larger potential audience base, and that AMC may be able to squeeze more out of those primo advertisers.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Scott good point about the changing nature of the marketplace. We tend to forget that all of this is taking place in a larger context as well — we just had a writers strike (and SAG negotiations) over the royalty structure for new media delivery systems, etc. H’wood is having to rethink a lot of things, and the migration of quality fiction shows to basic cable is one of them.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:11 pm
You guys are probably right that 4X the going rate is a little much, but if you don’t ask, you don’t get. I think a part of that is wanting to recoup some of his lost wages from his initial contract. The production company probably made much much more than they ever expected and MW didn’t try to re-negotiate while they were raking it in.
Also, I hope this doesn’t get played out in the public eye too much. It’s too much like seeing sausage being made- as I think someone has already mentioned. It would be nice if they could get it done quickly and quietly, so we don’t have to start trying to drum up grassroots support to save the show.
I am a little concerned that the production company has just started this. It seems like an amateur move on their part. They could have contacted MW’s people months ago. Now, everyone has to wonder about the next season until shooting begins? I know– it’s a tough business.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Latenac,
Fascinating how you know what the “going rate” is. For what? MW has created a competitor to HBO and taken all these people to the Emmy’s and Golden Globes, someplace they never would go with Clint Eastwood re-runs or Lions Gate’s torture movies. Take a look at the other stars of basic cable Shawn Ryan, Ryan Murphy, James Duff– what is the “going rate”? Plus, every other network will pay MW close to that money for his next show and would gladly switch places. This is business for sure, bu he took them there from zero.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Monique,
Latenac’s perception of the “going rate” is drawn from the Nikki Finke posting linked upthread. Finke essentially reported that MW was asking for HBO-type money, which AMC would be thought not to have w/o the extra subscription fees. That’s why I mentioned that we should consider that this negotiation is going on in a larger context where quality original shows are going to basic cable — how that may affect ad rates, etc. The “going rate” may well be increasing — and MW may play a big role in that. But I don’t think latenac was necessarily wrong from the standpoint of what the “going rate” has been in the past.
Also, while the awards should not be discounted, the suits are going to care much more about the 63% increase in viewership this year. The awards keep the buzz going and may draw more viewers to the DVDs and reruns ahead of S3, but it’s ultimately all about the eyeballs.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:20 pm
1.5 million for Mad Men is comparable to The Daily Show’s average view audience although that has been higher lately. Emmy’s are usually awarded to shows that are a critical success not necessarily a view success. The Sopranos got 11.9 million. CSI gets 19 million for comparison.
I’m not saying MW doesn’t deserve $10million maybe even more but fiscal realities have to be looked at as well. You can’t give him $10 million and then have to shortchange actors who also don’t have contracts right now from what I recall. AMC isn’t HBO and MW isn’t David Chase. No offense.
I do think however, that we don’t have the whole picture. For all we know the article I linked to was meant to have fans call AMC and tell them to pay MW whatever he asked for. Or they did call people up to show AMC that no one else would want to do the show if things ended badly in negotiations. I think we’re getting a peek into the sausage being made.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Actually, the story about the actors turned out to be mistaken, iirc. But they will all ask for more, eventually.
And the key part is that AMC is not HBO, regardless of whether you’re talking abbout MW or Chase.
The Gawker post linked in the latest “Mad News” notes that about half the people watching the MM finale make over 100K, mostly in the 25-54 demo. That augurs well for landing the type of sponsors and rates that may help AMC & Lionsgate afford the talent. Even in this type of economy, the truly well-off tend to stay pretty well-off.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:54 pm
athletes don’t negotiate their own contracts, so it’s not about 20-somethings who don’t know anything about business. Their agents are the ones who both negotiate their contracts and (usually) tell them what to say to the press about it.
My point was that Matt Weiner has more personal agency, being older and most probably more intellectually proficient than the average ballplayer. The ballplayers don’t know when to call off their dogs. Weiner does.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Matt Weiner is performing two key jobs: head writer, and executive producer (not to mention show creator.) He is the Mad Men equivalent of Seth Meyers plus Lorne Michaels at SNL. That’s a lot of creative talent. Is it worth $10 million? Well, add up the value of the Emmys, the enormous amount of free publicity for which AMC did not have to pay, the advertising revenues, the syndication rights, the foreign rights, and I’d say, pay the man.
As an equivalent, Ben Affleck gets $10 million per movie.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Bill O’Reilly just signed a deal for 10 million a year with Fox News. Wanna know their ratings? And don’t think no one is making money on basic cable… That’s just naive.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Matt Weiner is not David Chase. You’re right. No two writers are alike.
That said: he may be better. I felt the writing on “The Wire” was superior to what I heard on “The Sopranos”, but it never made the kind of bank the latter show did.
“Mad Men” resembles “The Wire” more than it does “The Sopranos” — in the intact world it creates for viewers, in the word-by-word precision of what is said, and especially in the weight of what is not said. I have to listen more closely to an episode of MM than I ever did with Tony and the boys — and there is much less comic relief. Much less relief of any kind, actually.
Matt Weiner deserves every penny of that asking price. He has singlehandedly elevated an obscure cable channel to the gold standard of scripted-series proving ground, with the single master stroke of launching “Mad Men” from there.
Other networks have taken notice. You can feel it in the strain of recent programming pushes at HBO and Showtime: they’re trying so hard to regain their premium-TV status that they really push the shock, in terms of both sex and violence. They can’t match the quality of what AMC has, so they fall back on the last taboos of a judgmental society. It’s a little sad.
But to Karl’s point: maybe I’m just not in HBO’s or Showtime’s demographic anymore. I look at that number in your post, Karl, and I see that it’s not just about my age; it’s about what I make and how I spend it.
I think that “Mad Men” and AMC are a nice match, in terms of both branding and their place on the cultural radar. But I loved HBO once, too. I guess I just don’t see myself among the one hundred colors in their box, any more.
October 31st, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Monique,
Paying O’Reilly $10 million is not the same as paying MW $10 million. O’Reilly is on the air considerably more than 13 hours a year, for starters — which sorta increases the number of ads that can be sold to recoup that cost. And O’Reilly is to his show what MW plus the entire cast is to MM; after O’Reilly, FNC won’t be required to pay megabucks to anyone else (for O’Reilly’s show, anyway).
I think MW deserves to get whatever the market will bear — if I could wave a magic wand, I would write MW a $10 million check out of my bottomless money bin. But I have yet to see any story in the press suggesting that Lionsgate is being greedy/crazy yet. And that’s probably because, as MW notes, negotiations are just starting. I expect if Lionsgate becomes unreasonable, we’ll see a lot about it in the press, because most everyone I’ve read thinks it would be crazy for Lionsgate to screw MW (with which I agree).
—
Anne B,
I take your point about HBO & SHO — though I think the latter was always positioning itself a bit more towards the sex/violence oriented programming than HBO. HBO’s problem is that they passed on Mad Men, and when The Sopranos and The Wire concluded, they had nothing as good on the burner. Let’s face it — throughout the decades, how many excellent TV shows have been airing at the same time? We can say HBO shoulda grabbed Mad Men, but are there tons of shows of that quality that HBO (or anyone else) is passing up?
And the demographics matter more to basic cable b/c of the advertising. And it’s long been true of the broadcast nets; the earliest years of SNL did not generate huge ratings, but those who watched were desirable to advertisers. That Gawker post in Mad News also discusses why MM may not be grabbing as big an 18-34 demo — and AMC wouldn’t mind having the youngsters, either!