Actors On Dick Wolf NBC Series Reduce Episodes, ‘Bob ❤️ Abishola’ Cast Take Pay Cuts Amid Broadcast Budget Tightening
13.04.2023 - 23:25
/ deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: NBC earlier this week picked up all six Wolf Entertainment series, Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., Chicago Med, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime, for next season. The renewals came with an asterisk as casts were told that they will appear in fewer episodes next year, I hear.
The development comes on the heels of CBS recently renewing veteran drama Blue Bloods for a fourteenth season after the cast agreed to a 25% pay cut, as Deadline extensively reported. We can now reveal that the actors on another recently renewed CBS series, comedy Bob ❤️ Abishola, also had to agree to a substantial, double-digit salary reduction for the show to get a Season 5 renewal (According to sources, it was less than 25%). Blue Bloods comes from CBS sibling CBS Studios, Bob ❤️ Abishola from an outside supplier, Warner Bros. TV.
Additionally, as Deadline reported, a S.W.A.T. renewal is in limbo over the size of the license fee offered by CBS.
One Chicago and Law & Order franchise producers Universal Television and Dick Wolf’s studio-based Wolf Entertainment are taking a different approach after reaching an agreement with NBC on budgets that will keep the series on the air for another season.
I hear episodic guarantees (the number of episodic fees per season each series regular is entitled according to their contract) are being renegotiated and are going down across the board.
This way actors are not taking per-episode pay cuts; their overall compensation will still go down as they will appear in fewer episodes, something the writers have to be mindful of as they craft next season’s scripts.
Word is that the number of episodes most series regulars on the three Chicago series, Law & Order and Law & Order: