I think it depends on what you define as industry I guess - in terms of journalism outlets I genuinely think that most places these days wouldn't pay under 20ppw at the absolute lowest as a base rate, but there's a difference between specifically Fleet Street and "content" I guess?
Comedy is wildly different. Ok so let’s give an example. I got paid a £60 weekly commission for Dead Ringers. To meet that commission, I pitched about 15-30 ideas. On average, I wrote about 8-10 sketches per week… There’s no money. What we’re paying is completely reasonable within context.
That is near-paper round levels of reimbursement - for creating. Woah.
And that's a prime time comedy show on the BBC's flagship spoken word station
I know… it seems so shitty and exploitative. You know what could go some way towards making that right? A pathway to regular/consistent content shovellers to more secure/fairly rewarded Beeb work. Maybe I’m being naive.
!!!!!!! oh my god comedy is somehow so much more fucked than journalism? genuinely had no idea, assumed we were similar levels of fucked but oh man
but also that's prob where the misunderstanding has come from? guess people can read your stuff as journalism or comedy and as we've just learnt both pay Very differently
Oh let me tell you about the joys of games journalism….
Yes, the point I think is this
This does grimly answer the question I'd wondered about 'what happened to comedy when the DVD money mines dried up?'
It does seem like stand-up is the only route into comedy now
not just comedy, my residuals have basically disappeared overnight
see also physical FX work
oh mate, sympathies
I don't even get offered a coffee or a pastry for meetings
wasn't a heck of a lot to begin with but still
(also it's really not just My Rates, I talk to lots of freelance journalists as transparency about rates help, I'm not being paid more than anyone else the vast majority of the time!) (but anyway you obviously shouldn't get shouted at for this, was just making a minorish point)
Yeah, the kind of pop culture outlets I've written for all my career paid about 10ppw when I started 25 years ago and a lot of them still pay that now. I have VERY rarely seen 20ppw. I would be DELIGHTED with 20ppw.
See the replies from eg Joel Morris and Mags L Halliday, both very respected writers in other parts of the industry. And I'll add to them. I now make a lot of money from crowdfunding but when I was a beginner freelancer I *never* got more than 10p/word.
You may not think your privilege is showing, but it really, *really* is.
We landed on journalism => comedy rates on this 🙂
I just also want to add, there is a general perception that writing pays better than it does anyway to those who don't pay any attention to industry standards or notice how little they pay for their newspaper or to see a website or listen to radio 4.
Yeah I think that's the crux of it!
12p a word seems better-than-most for many games journo places, from my basic mental math of old rates, which have not improved.
Yep. And it's far better than what you'd get for music criticism. Or writing for Newsjack or whatever the current R4 equivalent is. Or writing science fiction. When I was doing freelance stuff I never, *ever* encountered pay as high as 10p/word.
Better than pretty much any comicbook criticism I've been paid for...
What privilege lol? I started out as a freelancer with no contacts in journalism or indeed in Britain! I just worked like everyone else! I don't know what to say to you
Yes, that's how you *started out*. It's not where you are now. You're a known name.