The realities of residuals
Every delay has consequences.
When I tell people that I have enjoyed a 30-year career writing and producing television comedies, and that one of them was the long-running hit sitcom, Cheers, I know what they are thinking. They are thinking, Boy, I’ll bet that guy is just living large on those residuals.
Residuals, for those of you who are not in show business — though, to be honest, are we not all in show business, when you think about it? — are the per-episode payments a writer, actor, or director receives, pretty much forever, whenever that episode appears somewhere. Residual payments have a tight hold on the imagination of some people, and most of them assume that if you have enough episodes in rotation, you are in fat city.
I know this because many people just come right out and ask. So, how much are we talking? They will demand to know. Like, you probably never have to work again, am I right? And some people are a little more discreet — their eyes flick up and down, taking in my watch, my shoes, and the glow of my complexion, and rapidly adding up the costs of each. Nice shoes, probably in the high six to seven hundreds, plus that watch is vintage, and it’s a Patek, OK, has wrinkles, so probably no Botox, but the neck skin is fairly OK, and the general skin tone says expensive moisturizers, hard to say about residual payments, maybe he just invested smart?
(Getty Images)
I often have to wait a few seconds for this to die down before the conversation resumes.
This is fine, really. I don’t mind it at all. I understand the human need to know exactly what everyone else has in the bank. But for the record, let me clarify that residual payments start out pretty high, about 90% of the original script fee a writer received, but after a few reruns and a foreign sale or two, the number starts to slide down a very long, slippery slope. Put it this way: In the final quarter of 2025, the residual payments accrued during my entire career were, roughly, zero. The quarter before that, I think they were around $30. And when I opened the envelope and saw the check for that amount, my immediate reaction was, 30 bucks! Sweet! Over the decades, I have been conditioned to expect less.
So again, for the record, if you ever meet me and do the up-and-down scan: I inherited the watch.
None of this, I hope, comes off as ingratitude. When I was working full-time in television, during the go-go 1990s and early 2000s, I fully admit that my compensation package was what economists might call irrational …
Every delay has consequences.
When I tell people that I have enjoyed a 30-year career writing and producing television comedies, and that one of them was the long-running hit sitcom, Cheers, I know what they are thinking. They are thinking, Boy, I’ll bet that guy is just living large on those residuals.
Residuals, for those of you who are not in show business — though, to be honest, are we not all in show business, when you think about it? — are the per-episode payments a writer, actor, or director receives, pretty much forever, whenever that episode appears somewhere. Residual payments have a tight hold on the imagination of some people, and most of them assume that if you have enough episodes in rotation, you are in fat city.
I know this because many people just come right out and ask. So, how much are we talking? They will demand to know. Like, you probably never have to work again, am I right? And some people are a little more discreet — their eyes flick up and down, taking in my watch, my shoes, and the glow of my complexion, and rapidly adding up the costs of each. Nice shoes, probably in the high six to seven hundreds, plus that watch is vintage, and it’s a Patek, OK, has wrinkles, so probably no Botox, but the neck skin is fairly OK, and the general skin tone says expensive moisturizers, hard to say about residual payments, maybe he just invested smart?
(Getty Images)
I often have to wait a few seconds for this to die down before the conversation resumes.
This is fine, really. I don’t mind it at all. I understand the human need to know exactly what everyone else has in the bank. But for the record, let me clarify that residual payments start out pretty high, about 90% of the original script fee a writer received, but after a few reruns and a foreign sale or two, the number starts to slide down a very long, slippery slope. Put it this way: In the final quarter of 2025, the residual payments accrued during my entire career were, roughly, zero. The quarter before that, I think they were around $30. And when I opened the envelope and saw the check for that amount, my immediate reaction was, 30 bucks! Sweet! Over the decades, I have been conditioned to expect less.
So again, for the record, if you ever meet me and do the up-and-down scan: I inherited the watch.
None of this, I hope, comes off as ingratitude. When I was working full-time in television, during the go-go 1990s and early 2000s, I fully admit that my compensation package was what economists might call irrational …
The realities of residuals
Every delay has consequences.
When I tell people that I have enjoyed a 30-year career writing and producing television comedies, and that one of them was the long-running hit sitcom, Cheers, I know what they are thinking. They are thinking, Boy, I’ll bet that guy is just living large on those residuals.
Residuals, for those of you who are not in show business — though, to be honest, are we not all in show business, when you think about it? — are the per-episode payments a writer, actor, or director receives, pretty much forever, whenever that episode appears somewhere. Residual payments have a tight hold on the imagination of some people, and most of them assume that if you have enough episodes in rotation, you are in fat city.
I know this because many people just come right out and ask. So, how much are we talking? They will demand to know. Like, you probably never have to work again, am I right? And some people are a little more discreet — their eyes flick up and down, taking in my watch, my shoes, and the glow of my complexion, and rapidly adding up the costs of each. Nice shoes, probably in the high six to seven hundreds, plus that watch is vintage, and it’s a Patek, OK, has wrinkles, so probably no Botox, but the neck skin is fairly OK, and the general skin tone says expensive moisturizers, hard to say about residual payments, maybe he just invested smart?
(Getty Images)
I often have to wait a few seconds for this to die down before the conversation resumes.
This is fine, really. I don’t mind it at all. I understand the human need to know exactly what everyone else has in the bank. But for the record, let me clarify that residual payments start out pretty high, about 90% of the original script fee a writer received, but after a few reruns and a foreign sale or two, the number starts to slide down a very long, slippery slope. Put it this way: In the final quarter of 2025, the residual payments accrued during my entire career were, roughly, zero. The quarter before that, I think they were around $30. And when I opened the envelope and saw the check for that amount, my immediate reaction was, 30 bucks! Sweet! Over the decades, I have been conditioned to expect less.
So again, for the record, if you ever meet me and do the up-and-down scan: I inherited the watch.
None of this, I hope, comes off as ingratitude. When I was working full-time in television, during the go-go 1990s and early 2000s, I fully admit that my compensation package was what economists might call irrational …
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