SAG-AFTRA members who do television voiceover animation work are about to see a pay increase. The union has approved the 2020 SAG-AFTRA TV Animation Contracts with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. This new three-year agreement includes steady wage increases and a residual increase for streaming services.
This news comes at a crucial time: as the COVID-19 outbreak has shut down Hollywood and questions have arisen about how to safely reopen the industry, one area that has not been as affected is the voiceover sector. That work, which can be done remotely, has been a way for actors to generate income in the midst of a pandemic. In addition, streaming services like Netflix and Hulu have increased their output of original animated content; Netflix launched an in-house animation studio in 2018, which has created titles like “Big Mouth” and “Castlevania.” Meanwhile Hulu recently announced an “Animaniacs” revival.
“This is a strong, future-focused agreement with significant gains for our members,” said SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris in a statement. “It applies scale wages to more productions, lowers budget thresholds for half-hour HBSVOD programs, and delivers additional money for the use of interstitial programs in new media.”
The new agreement will apply retroactively from July 1, 2020, and will continue through June 30, 2023. It covers animated programs produced for network television, basic cable, and streaming platforms.
The new terms of the agreement includes: wage increases of 2.5% in the first year, 3% in the second year and 3% in the third year; a 26% improvement in residuals for high-budget animated programs made for subscription streaming services like Amazon Prime and Hulu; and a 1% increase in the contribution rate to the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan. In addition, the budget threshold that constitutes a high-budget half-hour animated program has been decreased from $550,000 to $500,000. The full terms of the new agreement can be found on the SAG-AFTRA website.
“The industry is changing, and our contracts are changing with it,” said SAG-AFTRA Chief Contracts Officer Ray Rodriguez Rodriguez in a statement. “Building off of our successful TV/Theatrical negotiations, the new animation contracts position members to grow residuals from subscription streaming services — the area of greatest growth.”