‘Suits’ Writers Call Out Paltry Streaming Residuals in Wake of Record-Breaking Netflix Run: “It’s This Blockbuster Hit, and I Received a Grand Total of $414”

By Nicole Gallucci @nicolemichele5
Published Aug. 10, 2023, 2:08 p.m. ET

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Suits

As WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes persist and tens of thousands of people withhold labor in pursuit of equitable streaming residuals, fair compensation, proper staffing of writers’ rooms, protections from the use of artificial intelligence, and more, a surprising series is emerging as the show of the summer: Suits.

Aaron Korsh’s legal drama, starring Gabriel Macht, Patrick Adams, Meghan Markle, Sarah Rafferty, Rick Hoffman, and Gina Torres, premiered in 2011 and wrapped in 2019. But with nine seasons, 134 episodes, and massive reach on both Netflix and Peacock, the decade-old USA cable series is capable of captivating subscribers in ways a 10-episode streaming season — no matter how flashy or prestigious — can’t. Suits’ recent success is likely an amalgamation of a unique plot, a powerful ensemble cast, and a longing for the pre-streaming days of larger multi-season scripted series. The allure varies from person to person, but the numbers all point to one thing: a Suits-issance is upon us.

Since moving from Prime Video to Netflix on June 17, Suits viewership has skyrocketed. The series holds a steady spot in Netflix’s weekly Top 10 chart, and from July 3 to July 9 Nielsen reported it garnered a whopping 3.7 billion viewing minutes on Peacock and Netflix combined. In doing so, the show set a new record as “streaming’s most viewed acquired title for a single week,” smashing the one set one week prior — by Suits. But as the show becomes a blockbuster hit in 2023, writers from the series are speaking out on sizably reduced residuals from the streaming sensation.

Sisters Nora and Lilla Zuckerman served as producers on Suits Season 4, supervising producers on Season 5, and writers on both 16-episode seasons. Yet their residual checks don’t properly reflect the show’s streaming success — one of the egregious issues WGA and SAG-AFTRA members are fighting to amend on the picket lines. To stress the severity of the situation, during a Zoom call with Decider, the Zucks pulled up residual payments received for a single episode of Suits from both 2016 and 2023. For writing “Blowback” (Season 5, Episode 11), “I received $12,568.57 in residuals,” Lilla said. “That was back in 2016, where I imagine it was probably being sold internationally and re-airing on USA. This year, 2023, where Suits has been viewed for billions and billions of hours on Netflix, I received the grand total of $414.26 on that episode.”

Patrick Adams, Gina Torres, and Gabriel Macht of 'Suits'
Photo: Universal Studio Group

Meanwhile, Ethan Drogin — who served as a writer, producer, and executive story editor throughout eight of Suits‘ nine seasons — revealed in an LA Times article that he only received $259.71 in streaming residuals last quarter for writing the Season 1 episode, “Identity Crisis.” Furthermore, he reported that “All together, NBCUniversal paid the six original Suits writers less than $3,000 last quarter to stream our 11 Season 1 episodes on two platforms.”

Despite the series’ recent surge, Suits writers aren’t seeing anything close to the residual amounts they received before the streaming era. “It’s really hard to sort through all these checks, because you get dozens of them that are like $7 here, $30 there, and so forth. But that’s with Suits airing on two different major streaming platforms. It’s this blockbuster hit, and I received a grand total of $414 for it,” Lilla explained. “You hope that maybe some magical check will arrive, but it does not appear,” Nora added.

For those unfamiliar with residuals, the payments allow writers, actors, and other eligible parties involved in the creation of a television show or film to share in a project’s long-term success and profits. Residuals are paid whenever whole projects or individual episodes are reused or re-aired, be it on a major broadcast network, cable channel, streaming service, DVD, or other medium. And in many cases, continued compensation is crucial to ensuring sustainable careers within the entertainment industry. “The work is very cyclical. You don’t necessarily have a salary or multi-year contracts. You might not know when your next paycheck is coming in,” said Lilla, who is currently a WGA captain. 

Before Suits, the Zucks established their careers on cable and network shows like Fox’s Fringe and SyFy’s Haven, so they know residuals can be life-changing. “The most recent network show we were on was Prodigal Son, and when a new season would start, they’d re-air the last three or four episodes of the previous season,” Nora explained. “All of a sudden you go, ‘Oh my gosh. I’m getting a residual for this.’ And it would basically pay your salary for the hiatus — the time you waited to come back to the show. It’s a huge thing.”

Receiving those beautiful green envelopes in the mail used to spark joy, but lately, Nora said, “it’s been pretty sad.” The Zucks recently opened residual checks for two different episodes of Haven for around $5 and $7, while other WGA and SAG-AFTRA members are making headlines after sharing checks for a few dollars or cents. Lizzie McGuire actor Robert Carradine, who played Sam McGuire (dad to Hilary Duff’s character Lizzie) even posted a 2019 residual check from Disney to Instagram made out for $0.00. The caption simply read, “Why we’re striking.”

Residuals have diminished for many post-streaming, and the Zucks say the arrival of checks is utterly unpredictable unless you know your show or film is specifically being re-run. (For example, Abbott Elementary episodes will be rerun as part of ABC’s upcoming fall lineup, meaning those writers and actors should be able to count on residuals from the airings). “You could go a year and not see [residuals] from a certain show. We’ve been on shows where we haven’t received them for several years. It’s always a surprise when these green envelopes show up. You’re not sure if it’s going to be $10 or $5,000,” said Lilla. “You can’t necessarily count on it. But people really did back in the day. When things would air on a network or basic cable, the work that you put in on a show — that the companies are still making money off of and they’re still monetizing — you were fairly compensated for that. And that is no longer the case…All we’re asking for is to go back to the functional way it was before.”

The WGA has been negotiating residuals since the 1950s, but the Zucks noted that during the 2007/2008 strike, the labor union wisely fought “to have a toehold in residuals” for what they successfully anticipated would become the streaming era. “The companies didn’t even want us to get a fraction. They said, ‘We don’t even know what this new media is going to be like. It might not be a thing. We need time to research.’ Luckily, we fought to at least crack the door open in terms of residuals,” Lilla explained. “Everybody is more fired up than ever, because we know we’re going to win this thing. It’s really only a matter of time.”

One of the reasons it’s such a challenge for creatives to know if they’re being fairly compensated is that streaming companies often refuse to share specific data or concrete viewership numbers, claiming it’s proprietary information. As a result, outsiders are left to gauge the success of a streaming series by word of mouth, renewal status, or — as Lilla noted — “something like Suits, that has become such a juggernaut that Netflix is telling all their Wall Street investors how wonderfully it’s doing.”

The situation becomes even more dire when you consider examples like the Zucks’ most recent project, Peacock’s Poker Face. The breakout 2023 show, from acclaimed director Rian Johnson, stars Natasha Lyonne alongside an impressive lineup of guest stars, including Adrien Brody, Judith Light, Nick Nolte, Rhea Perlman, and more. Poker Face has been on countless “Best Of The Year” lists, won several awards and recently received four Emmy nominations. But in a twist so shocking you’ll feel compelled to scream “BULLSHIT!” like protagonist Charlie Cale, it’s also been a major step down monetarily for the sisters, who worked as showrunners, writers, and executive producers of Peacock’s prized mystery-of-the-week series.

“Poker Face was our first show that we’ve worked on for a streamer. And you would think because we were the showrunners and the executive producers, that this would mean a big payday for us. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case,” Lilla revealed. “We actually took a pay cut to write and produce this award-winning TV show.” 

Since writers are usually compensated per episode, Lilla explained, the shorter the season, the less money they make. For that reason — among others — writing a pre-streaming network show versus a streaming series is “very different.” After breaking all 10 episodes of Poker Face, spending six months producing them in upstate New York away from their families, and helping perfect them in post-production, the Zucks made less money than they did as co-executive producers of Prodigal Son three years ago — when they were only responsible for writing and producing two or three episodes a year.

As one of their many Poker Face responsibilities, the two served as head writers of Season 1’s penultimate episode, “Escape From Shit Mountain,” directed by Johnson and starring Lyonne, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Stephanie Hsu. Despite it being “one of the most exciting, big, dynamic episodes of television” Nora has ever tackled, she added it was “probably the lowest script fee we’ve ever received in our careers.”

Nora Zuckerman and Lilla Zuckerman at 'Poker Face' Premiere Event
Photo: Jesse Grant/Peacock

Lilla also noted that Poker Face was the only time in their career that they weren’t paid for their work in post-production — months spent watching cuts, mixing sound, color correcting, seeing layered effects, and so on. “This is happening to a lot of showrunners,” Lilla said. “[They’re] not being compensated for their work in post, which is really the final step of writing, because you were on set the entire time, you know what takes you have, you know how the scene can come together in a different way.”

Reflecting on their journey from network TV writers to showrunners of an Emmy-nominated streaming series, Lilla explained, “Nora and I have been writing together for 15 years. And we’ve really worked our way up the ranks, and we have fought our way to the top, only to find that when we got to the top there was nothing there.” When Decider suggested that they summited their own Shit Mountain, laughing, Nora added, “Hopefully we escape.”