Are the people associated with NBC programming produced in-house, such as Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show or Lester Holt on NBC Nightly News, employees of the network, with like W-2’s and such? Does Jimmy pay for his health insurance via the same plans that are offered to NBC’s secretaries and janitors? Or are “the talent” portion of in-house network shows considered independent contractors?
Note that this question would apply to CBS, ABC, and so on.
The Tonight Show is produced by Universal Television, part of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast, and Broadway Video, Lorne Michael’s production company. Production companies own shows and, effectively, lease them to networks for a per show price.
I don’t know how the dual structure affects the internal payment and employment status of The Tonight Show in particular. I think that Fallon and the others can be considered employees of Universal Television, which would ultimately make them Comcast employees. However, Fallon and Higgins and the Roots may have separate contracts with Broadway Video or some other arrangement.
This answer does not necessarily apply to any other network. David Letterman owned his production company, World Wide Pants, which also owned the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. However, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will be owned by CBS Television Studios. His Comedy Central show was owned by Jon Stewart’s Busboy Productions.
In general, you can go to IMDb.com and look up any show to find its production company. That doesn’t work with The Daily Show because it credits Mad Cow Productions, which is a talent agency. I don’t know why the discrepancy.
News people would be under the corporate banner of the parent company - Comcast for NBC, Disney for ABC, Viacom for CBS - and then whatever subsidiary controls the news programming.
As for health insurance, actors generally have insurance via their union, SAG/AFTRA. My mother was a claims processor for the health insurance of SAG for many years. The union contract specifies the details, but it goes something like this: You’re covered if you have some minimum paid work as an actor, regardless of who you’re working for.
I find it hard to believe that anyone other than NBC owns the rights to The Tonight Show. I think the ownership of that particular show may be more complex than that. Otherwise when whatever contract expires Universal would be able to say, “Screw it we are taking The Tonight Show to Fox.”
Um, except Universal is owned by NBC/Comcast.
Just to nitpick, Comcast Corporation (aka Comcast Holdings) is the parent company, NBCUniversal is a subsidiary, and Universal Television is a subsidiary of that.
And Loach, they can’t go to Fox any more than your pinkie finger can come ask my hand for a home.
“Owning” a show means different things to different people.
Certainly NBC has owned certain things such as the name of the show. But the production of the show has not always been done by NBC. E.g., Johnny Carson’s company used to produce it for a while. Those “Best of Johnny” DVDs and such are still released by Carson Entertainment. They own those episodes.
This was one thing that NBC liked about Leno taking over. They were going to get production of the show back. OTOH, CBS was desperate enough to have someone opposite Leno that they conceded production of the show(s) to Letterman’s World Wide Pants. But now they have things stabilized more and they are running both their late night talk shows.
Other complications: It could be said that Letterman was employed by CBS as a producer of his show, but not as a performer. I.e., they could fire Letterman (actually his company) and bring in new producers, but they couldn’t directly replace him as a host and leave the rest the same.
And Antenna TV has bought the rights to run those episodes in their entirety beginning on Jan. 1, 2016. But for legal reasons they can’t call it “The Tonight Show”.
The usual way for big-shot talent is to have their own company which employs them. This company then contracts with the production company to provide the services of the big shot. This type of company is called a “loan-out company.”
So, for example, our big name actor John Doe has a company called John Doe Productions, Inc., which he owns entirely. He’s hosting the “The Really, Really Late Show” which is produced by a different company called The Really, Really Late Show Productions, Inc. The Really, Really Late Show, Productions, Inc. contracts with John Doe Productions, Inc. to provide the services of John Doe, and John Doe is an employee of John Doe Productions, Inc.
Now, that’s just from a legal perspective. From a union perspective, John Doe is an employee of the company with the union contract, which is probably going to be The Really, Really Late Show, Productions, Inc.
And from a tax perspective, this might go either way (depending on how the deal is structured), but probably, John Doe would be an employee of John Doe Productions, Inc. for tax purposes.
In that arrangement, the production company (owner which is Michaels) gets paid and his company writes a check to Fallon. Fallon directly is an employee of Michaels’ production company, not the network or studio.
Years ago, Tom Snyder (talk show host) mentioned when he was doing his Tomorrow Show, came into the studios at an off time. The guard there didn’t know him and asked him for ID. The guard looked him up on their computer system and he told Snyder that he wasn’t listed as an employee. Snyder took this as a shock, and thought he had been fired from the show and they didn’t tell him yet. But he admitted he quickly realized he didn’t work for the network/studio any longer, it was through either his own production company or a production company he was contracted with to do the show.
But the customer in all this is the network/studio, and if they don’t like something about the show or want changes, that gets discussed with the production company. To the audiences, the hosts still say the work for the network/studio, because at one time they all did and it makes it easier for the audiences to understand.
In a company, any company, it can be formed that there are different classifications of employees. For example, if you started an LLC called HeyHomie LLC, you could make yourself CEO, hire a few more friends with tiles and call this group Officers of the company. Then hire more people to do the grunt work. Those people are “Members of Staff”. In the group health policy you purchase for the company, and you can offer more than one policy and from different companies if you wish, you can offer health benefits for the all employees or different ones depending on their classification. You could offer the “Members of Staff” classification that you will only pay 10% of their health benefits. But for the “Officers” of the company, that classification can be that those get health benefits with zero deductible and the company pays 100% of their health insurance costs, thus providing a benefit to the “Officers” of the company that cost them nothing out of pocket.
I mention the above example, because it’s very likely that Fallon’s health benefits are provided by Michaels’ production company at no cost to him. It’s considered a perk to highly compensated employees.
You can create a Group Policy for a small company with a minimum of two employees. I know because I have done this.
There is a difference between owning the brand name for the show and owning the content. But in reality, the production company is being contracted to produce The Tonight Show brand and owns all the content created for that show. This is expected, often as software the developers hired to create an application transfer the copyright of the software to the company or client paying for it all.
Fallon might be able to take the show to Fox, but just not call it The Tonight Show. I say might, assuming the contract with the production company says he can’t do that for a period of time or something. It could be like those employer non-competes which say you can’t work blah, blah, blah for 3 years.
I long for the simpler days of yore when RCA owned NBC, and GE owned RCA.
Normally I would agree with you. The situation here is complicated because The Tonight Show was an existing show owned by NBC (or whatever the corporate letterhead was) since Leno took it over. That means that Universal Television and Broadway Video had to come to some contractual understanding about who provides what. I don’t know the details. But Universal Television is itself a production company under the Comcast banner, so it is very possible that Comcast is the ultimate payer.
I have always enjoyed Jimmy Fallon on SNL and in his movies.He has found his true groove as a talk show host for he is genuine appreciating his guests.Relevant monologues,a variety of guests,entertaining skits and games.The Roots are fantadtic.“Thank you notes” are a weekly highlight.He shows gratitude to his audience when he runs through the stairs at the end of each show.Fallon is very gifted indeed to be able to interview,sing,dance and impersonate.I tape his show daily,which I never did before for a late night talk show host:):)
Looked like Jay Leno is trying to muscle back in during the monologue this week.
It can get even more complicated: Many big and not so big names are incorporated, and their fees go to a “loanout corporation” which in return for money “loans” the performer (director, writer) to the production. It’s a way to minimize taxes. This doesn’t preclude the loaned person from receiving fringe payments from the appropriate guild for pension and health. DGA/WGA/SAGAFTRA benefits are pretty good, but it’s also possible an individual might negotiate even better coverage/additional coverage.
I should have added, that in a narrow sense the individual is an employee of their own loanout corporation. But the corporation will sign a contract with the larger entity which subjects the loaned employee to the policies of the bigger company–just for example, sexual harassment guidelines.