Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: bbc, disney, doctor who, Writers Guild of Great Britain

Doctor Who: Disney Deal Changes Writers' Payments to Upfront Fees

With Disney now co-financing Doctor Who with the BBC in exchange for worldwide streaming rights, show writers' contracts have changed.

The return of Doctor Who may be cause for celebration, but the new writers' contracts might be an issue for any future writers who might be hired on the show. Deadline reported that episodic writers for the series are now being paid a large fee upfront rather than a smaller fee plus residuals that have seen previous scriptwriters earn additional compensation when Doctor Who is repeated. The new contracts now offer a buyout model where writers are paid an upfront fee with no promise of future residuals or payments. The buyout model was first introduced by Netflix when the streamer began producing original series and feature films and has been one of the factors that led to the Writers' Guild of America strike this year.

Doctor Who has been one of the most lucrative British sources of residuals for former writers down the years as it is so heavily repeated. The entire back catalog has just landed on BBC iPlayer, for example. According to Deadline, the new contracts were freely negotiated and agreed with writers and their agents. This comes at a time when issues about writers' compensation and residual payments, especially in the era of streaming. are of particular importance for writers. In the US, it led to the WGA strike. Doctor Who is a British show primarily owned and controlled by the BBC and thereby does not have to abide by WGA contracts but WGGB contracts. The Writers' Guild of Great Britain is a sister union to the Writers' Guild of America and has expressed support and solidarity with the WGA during their strike. This is going to be a point of contention  Disney+ made a deal with the BBC to co-finance Doctor Who, injecting the show with a bigger budget than it ever had before, in exchange for worldwide streaming rights outside of the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Ellie Peers, General Secretary of the Writers Guild of Great Britain, told Deadline: "As a trade union, we take our responsibilities in negotiations very seriously, and this involves being in full possession of the facts before taking up issues with broadcasters and others, both privately and publicly. The terms outlined to us by Deadline, if true, would represent a serious retrograde step for UK writers working on Doctor Who."

The remarks from the WGGB suggest that the writers' contracts for Disney's co-production of the new series of Doctor Who were negotiated without consultation or input from the union, which has enforced minimum fees and residual payments for screenwriters under UK Film and Television contracts ever since its formation.

"We urge writers who have these contracts to come forward and contact us in confidence so we can look at them properly and move forward from there," Peters added.

A BBC/BBC Studios spokeswoman said: "Doctor Who deals are individually negotiated and commercially confidential. However, all deals take into account both the rights needed by the programme funders and the fees and residuals payable to talent."

New negotiations between the WGGB and the Film and Television companies are due in 2024, so it'll be interesting to see what changes will come from that, especially with the WGGB likely to use the new WGA agreements as a template for screenwriters in the UK, especially in the age of streaming.

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