Netflix’s Ted Sarandos has claimed that SAG-AFTRA asked for a levy on every subscriber to streaming service, which led to the breakdown in talks to end the actors strike. “Last night, they introduced a levy on subscribers on top of [other] areas,” the Co-CEO said.
He called it a “bridge too far”. He said that the AMPTP offered a success-based bonus to the actors, similar to the offer that the WGA accepted, but that was rejected and SAG-AFTRA came back with the levy proposal.
Speaking at Bloomberg’s Screentime event, he said its success-based proposal would cost four to five times as much as the one it offered the WGA because of the number of people involved. “This has been a very difficult time obviously… the goal here is to get people back to work,” he added. “This is not just hurting our industry, it’s hurting every other industry, and not just in California.” When Sarandos walked on to the stage, he joked, “How’s your week going?”.
The moderator said that after the WGA deal was struck, he thought the actors strike would end soon. Sarandos replied, “Me too”.
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