The regular cast members of CBS' FBI and FBI: Most Wanted will be shortened by two episodes next season, sources have learned. The third FBI series, FBI: International would not be affected. Representatives for FBI producers Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television declined comment.
As reported this week, the former cast members of ABC's Grey's Anatomy will have their episodes shortened by three to four episodes next season to cut costs.
The measure for the two FBI series reflects the episode guarantee discounts implemented a year ago for Wolf/Uni TV's Chicago drama series and Law & Order. The timing makes sense because such cuts in talent usually follow a renewal that nowadays comes with a fixed or reduced license fee.
NBC's six dramas had to be renewed last year, with the number of episodes reduced shortly after they were picked up. Meanwhile, the FBI series was stuck with two-year renewals that only arrived this spring. All three series were picked up by CBS for the following season, with the mothership scoring a three-year renewal. There will be no further episode cuts for Wolf's NBC series this year, sources said.
An episode guarantee represents the number of episodes each series manager is entitled to each season under their contract, regardless of how many they appear on screen each week. Usually that equates to "all episodes produced" or a full season, which is usually 22 episodes for most Wolf Entertainment procedurals.
For the upcoming 22-episode seasons of FBI and FBI: Most Wanted, regular actors are "guaranteed" to be paid for 20 episodes, meaning the producers will likely use them in that many episodes to take advantage of the savings from having to pay actors extra for extra episodes.
As for why the discount only applies to FBI and FBI: Most Wanted, they are more expensive because they film in the US and have a larger core cast (five to six members) with big names including Missy Peregrym, Jeremy Sisto and Alana De La Garza (FBI) and Dylan McDermott, Keisha Castle-Hughes and Edwin Hodge (FBI: Most Wanted).
With the departure of Luke Kleintank, FBI: International is left with four regular actors who are not as established and half of whom are international actors. In addition, the series has lower production costs by filming in Hungary.
Reducing the number of episodes of regular actors has become a common cost-saving practice. It won't affect the actors' per-episode fee, but their overall compensation will go down because they'll be appearing in fewer episodes, something the writers will have to take into account as they develop storylines.
An alternative to reducing the budget is to cut the salaries of the actors, as happened last year with Blue Bloods, or to return a number of regular actors, as we saw with programs such as Bob Hearts Abishola and Superman & Lois.
Such cuts have become inevitable in the current challenging economic climate as television productions become more expensive and media groups place greater emphasis on their balance sheets, with linear series most vulnerable to declining viewing figures.
The goal "is really to reduce our investments in content quite dramatically, specifically targeting those traditional networks," Bob Iger, CEO of ABC parent company Disney, said this week about cutting programming spending for the nation's linear networks. company.
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