£6.1 million has been paid out in royalties in the first five months of 2024 because performers were working on Equity contracts.
This follows figures from May 2024 in which over £4.6 million was paid in royalties and secondary payments to more than 5,000 performers.
Since Equity brought distributions back in-house in late 2017 a total of £87.1 million has been paid out to tens of thousands of performers engaged on union contracts.
These payments are all derived from Equity’s industrial agreements for film, TV and cast album recordings. The recent payments have gone to performers working on Equity contracts from a range of new sources of revenue including:
- Cable relay payments to Ireland, Holland and Belgium for BBC programmes originally broadcast in 2022.
- ITV video-on-demand payments for programmes available on ITV’s catch-up platforms during 2021 and 2022.
- Secondary payments derived from the Equity/PACT TV agreement for shows including HBO’s Game of Thrones.
- Secondary payments for archive Disney titles.
- Secondary payments arising from Equity’s cast album recording agreements.
This level of payment is only possible because the performers were working on Equity contracts. This shows once again the power of the union’s industrial agreements.
