TV Writers, Producers Reveal Salaries in Anonymous Doc in Fight for Equal Pay
An anonymous Google doc is making its way around social media and gaining serious momentum.
The spreadsheet details the salaries from those in the entertainment industry working as TV writers, assistants and executives. The mission? To gain knowledge in the fight for equal pay.
The document asks those who contribute to fill out categories such as gender, whether they’re a person of color, years of experience, studio, and network. There’s also a blank column for any other additional material the person feels is relevant to their wage.
As predicted, pay disparity is already becoming evident. For example, one female co-producer at the CW who is a person of color reported making $10,000 per episode. Meanwhile, another CW female producer, who is not a person of color, said she made $14,000 per episode for a first-season series. And the white male co-producer at NBC? He claimed to have made $17,000 per episode.
The document is another step forward in the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements battling sexual harassment, inequality, and abuse in the workplace. The pay gap needs to addressed and remedied as Catt Sadler of E! News previously pointed out. The correspondent discovered her male counterpart, Jason Kennedy, was making double her wage, even though they started at the same time and performed very similar roles.
TV WRITERS SALARY – Please help us achieve parity by sharing any info you are willing to. Thanks!! https://t.co/kISLrAuKAQ
— Tina Gharavi (@Gharavi) January 23, 2018
TV writers and producers are anonymously sharing salaries here: https://t.co/aiBI17uU2Z
— Muna Mire (@Muna_Mire) January 23, 2018
More recently, Mark Wahlberg donated his $1.5 million paycheck from reshooting All the Money in the World to Time’s Up after it was revealed his co-star Michelle Williams made less than $1,000 for the same reshoot.
So yes, a cultural shift is happening and hopefully documents like this will help close the gap.
