BBC Refuses To Share 1A Fees With Commissioned Indies!

Posted on 5th March 2007

Without consideration or consultation with the independent sector, the BBC have unilaterally decided to stop sharing the 1A fees with commissioned indies. To date it has been standard practise between the BBC and indies to share this all-important information in an effort to ensure that actors are paid the correct amount, and that neither the BBC nor the indie sector allow prices to rise unduly and out of control.

However, at the end of February indies started to be get their simple requests turned down by the Talent Rights Group. After demanding a reason, the BBC claimed that they were respecting the confidentiality of their contracts and could no longer share the exact 1A fees. Instead they would give a 'range' or indication of whether the fee the indie had been quoted by an agent was correct. This has already led to much more work negotiating contracts, many more emails to and fro with the BBC Legal team and general unrest and resentment not just from drama indies, but agents, talent groups and producers across the country.

RIG called a meeting with the head of the BBC Talent Rights Group, at which a solution was tabled - that if RIG were able to get agents to authorise the BBC to share 1A fees, then the BBC would be happy to return to the old system. As usual, it is the indie sector having to do the work to resolve a situation that is of the BBC's own making!

As such, RIG are currently contacting every agent who has worked with an indie in the past 4-5 years requesting they authorise the BBC to share 1A fees. We hope, therefore, to have the issue resolved within a few short weeks.