‘Modern Family’ fight
A pay dispute between the comedy’s actors and producers will be resolved, an ABC executive says.
The high-profile battle over pay between several key actors of “Modern Family” and the studio producing television’s No. 1comedy will be resolved, ABC’s entertainment chief said.
“I expect the season to start on time,” ABC Entertainment Group President Paul Lee told writers Friday at the Television Critics Assn. gathering in Beverly Hills. “We are in the middle of negotiations, and we are hopeful and optimistic that we will be able to resolve it.”
ABC has much riding on the outcome. The Emmywinning program, which is entering its fourth season this fall, is the anchor of the Walt Disney Co. network’s Wednesday night lineup and its highest-rated scripted series. The show draws an average of 13.3 million viewers per original episode.
The salary dispute exploded this week when several of the actors — Sofia Vergara, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Eric Stonestreet, Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell — failed to show up for a script reading and then filed a lawsuit, claiming that their employment contracts were illegal. Ed O’Neill, who plays the patriarch on the show, has since joined the suit.
The show’s cast later performed the script reading, Lee said. Shooting on the first episode of the season is scheduled to begin next week. The show is produced by 20th Century Fox Television and ABC.
“We are in this with 20th Century. We are full partners with them,” Lee said, indicating that ABC was participating financially in the production of the show, including decisions on how much to pay the performers.
Contract renegotiations are common in the television industry, particularly when a show becomes a hit and reaps a windfall in syndication. Twentieth Century Fox has sold reruns of the show to NBCUniversal’s USA Network for a reported $1.5 million an episode.
One newspaper writer from Florida asked Lee why the skirmish, involving actors for a show so important to the network, flared out of control so quickly. Lee declined to answer the question, saying only, “I don’t want to talk about specifics of negotiations, but it’s a wonderful show, great cast, and we are optimistic.”