The advertising industry’s Joint Policy Committee (JPC) on Broadcast Talent Union Relations, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) have invited nine consultants from industry and academia to jointly explore alternate compensation models for performers in commercials that appear on traditional (TV, radio) and/or new media outlets.
Approaches resulting from the study will be offered for consideration in the negotiating process surrounding the ad industry’s collective bargaining agreement with SAG/AFTRA, which is scheduled to expire on Oct. 29.
In guiding consultants, the Request for Proposal (RFP) for the joint study states: “SAG, AFTRA and the JPC realize that any study must be comprehensive and take into consideration the myriad of interests of all the parties–performers and their unions on one hand and advertisers and their partners [advertising agencies–production companies, talent payroll services, casting directors and cost consultants]–on the other hand.”
The call for the development of new compensation models for consideration is generally regarded as a positive step towards hopefully attaining a new agreement without a strike or work stoppage. The actors’ unions went on strike against the ad industry in 2000. That six-month strike exacerbated the runaway production problem, and had a profoundly negative impact on the U.S. economy.
The RFP also reflects the fact that both labor and management consider the longstanding compensation model to not be viable in today’s complex media landscape in which ads are gaining exposure on a variety of traditional and emerging (i.e., mobile hone, VOD, iPods) platforms.
