Brierley, who speaks for a vocal group of concerned actors including Tony Booth and Miriam Margolyes, claims that broadcasters want to "dismantle our entire repeat fee structure. Once you lose residuals, you will never get them back."Royalty arrangements are also criticised because there are no limits on the number of repeats. An independent arbitrator will be appointed to assess programme sales and to establish whether they are concluded at a "market price".The dissenters also fear that the royalty system will soon be applied to terrestrial repeats as well. So does the Equity Council, which recommended the arrangement by an overwhelming majority. More programmes will be sold, the Council says, generating higher incomes for actors.So what's not to like? A lot, say the dissenters. For a start, ITV companies themselves are setting up cable and satellite channels. What is to stop them from selling programmes on the cheap to their own subsidiaries, thereby cheating billed actors out of their fair due? "It is impossible to ensure that all sales are at a true market price," says actor Roger Brierley, "and anyone who pretends otherwise doesn't know how the programme market works."Equity Council sources counter that the agreement takes account of the problem of "non-arm's length sales".
As a result, says James Lancaster, head of rights negotiation at the Beeb's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, "sales to the cable and satellite markets are uneconomic. The residuals owed to actors can in some cases exceed the amount the programme is sold for." Result? Hardly any BBC and ITV programmes have found their way on to subscription television.The BBC and ITV say the deal is good for everyone. A similar arrangement has been agreed for Granada TV's new satellite channels. In each case, fees are based on the residual system, with repeats generating payments of 10 or 15 per cent of the original fee.In all other cases, broadcasters are obliged to pay the standard residuals, even when they sell programmes to channels with minuscule audiences.
Interim agreements were reached between the union and a handful of channels, including UK Gold, the BBC/Thames TV hits service, allowing repeats of certain popular programmes. Cable and satellite channels represent a viewing share of just over 8 per cent - not much next to the BBC's 44 per cent, ITV's 40 per cent and even Channel 4's 11 per cent. That is set to change radically, however, as multichannel television takes off.Until the current deal was negotiated, following two years of painstaking talks, there was no overall framework for cable and satellite repeats. For every repeat on ITV, billed actors receive 100 per cent of their original fee, for BBC repeats, they receive 80 per cent.The new cable and satellite deal tosses out residuals in favour of a royalty payment, similar to the system already in place for overseas sales. Simple enough, one might have thought, and hardly of earth-shaking importance, given the meagre size of the pay-TV market.But Equity members are beginning to realise just how big the stakes are. Actors would get 17 per cent of the price the programme is sold for, rather than a percentage of their original fee.
