Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos shed some light on why negotiations between striking actors union SAG-AFTRA and Hollywood’s biggest producers fell apart.
After a blistering statement from the guild in the wee hours on Thursday morning accused the studios and streamers of “bully tactics,” Sarandos hit the main stage of Bloomberg’s Screentime conference and ran head first into questions about the breakdown.
Sarandos said that Wednesday evening talks ended with the guild proposing a “levy” on each of Netflix’s roughly 238 million subscribers.
“We had very productive talks going, then what kind of happened last night — they introduced this levy on subscribers, on top of… historic highs in terms of increases across the board,” Sarandos said at the Los Angeles event. The executive pointed out that while the producers’ offer to actors mirrors the studios’ newly ratified contract with the Writers Guild of America, it will cost “four-to-five times more” to implement a similar contract with SAG-AFTRA’s larger membership.
Sarandos also said the subscriber levy came after the studios, represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, received a similar proposal to share revenue with the actors.
“It just felt like a bridge too far to add this deep into the negotiation,” he said. Sarandos did not clarify if the guild was seeking a per-subscriber cut from Netflix exclusively, or from all streaming services involved in the negotiations.
The studios have approached this negotiation with the same intensity they did the coronavirus pandemic, Sarandos said, and underscored a need to get production up and running after over five months dark.
“The goal here is to get people back to work. The goal is to get the town opened up,” he said. “This is not just hurting our industry, it’s hurting every other business that supports our industry… not just in California, but [it’s] very, extremely painful in California.”
In its statement prior to Sarandos’ remarks, SAG-AFTRA leadership did not hold back.
“We have negotiated with them in good faith, despite the fact that last week they presented an offer that was, shockingly, worth less than they proposed before the strike began,” the guild told its membership in an email. “These companies refuse to protect performers from being replaced by AI, they refuse to increase your wages to keep up with inflation, and they refuse to share a tiny portion of the immense revenue YOUR work generates for them.”
