Salary
Average Salary: $76,000
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $3,172,848
Remember earlier, when we gave you the scoop about how there are no more billion dollar shows? Well congrats for sticking it out and making it this far. If the money issues haven't scared you away, you're clearly too stubborn to give up on your TV writing dreams. So let's talk a little bit about the kind of money you can expect to make if you ever crack a show's writing staff.
What matters most in a writers' room is your title. At the lowest level, staff writer, a budding writer is paid a weekly rate of around $3,600, depending on whether the show is on cable or a network. If a show is picked-up for 13 episodes (a common length of a cable TV season), the room usually goes for around six months, which comes to around $86,000. Not bad for six months worth of work.
But not so fast there, Richie Rich. Your agent and/or manager get their cut too. Some writers have an agent, a manager, or, wait for it, both. Whatever the case, they each take 10% from your paycheck. So, that's right, if you have both an agent and a manager, you'll lose 20% of each paycheck—before taxes, of course.
But it's not all take, take, take. For every script written, a staff writer receives residual checks, which come in glorious green envelopes delivered by the Incredible Hulk (okay, maybe not—but we can always hope, right?). These residual checks contain a little moolah following the airing of a credited episode.
Once a scribe moves beyond staff writer, the weekly pay increases and writers are compensated for each script they write (and yes, they still get those awesome residual checks). The rates range from about $16,000-$25,000 per script, depending on whether the show is on cable or a network, and whether it's a half-hour or an hour. But not too bad, right?
So yes, even though the money isn’t what it once was, it's still pretty good. The problem is, shows get canceled, staffs get cut, and jobs are few and far between. Even when a writer is, well, raking in the dough, he or she must save—unemployment is always looming. Always.
A writer's income is never stable. Some writers are lucky enough to jump from job to job without any financial interruption, but this is rarer than well, a very, very undercooked steak.