Hired as the new Creative Services Guy late last year. Learning quickly how much stuff is taken, that I think I should be getting paid for. Which leads me to my question. A client comes in every month to voice a spot, I usually voice the disclaimer. When I finish producing the spot I send it to the clients agency contact, who then distributes the spot. My stations air the spot, but I heard my work on a competing station and thought, shouldn't I have been paid by the agency for producing their spot?
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Should I get paid for that...?
- Thread starter gcraig87
- Start date
I've been in your position, several times.
It sure is a gray area. You need to work something out with your Manager.
Have it in writing. If a spot you voiced airs outside of your cluster's stations, you should
be paid ______dollars, from the agency through station billing.
Or, at the very least, the station should be getting the fee. The station is already paying you to do production.
I believe the extra fee for having your commercials air on other stations is a good incentive for you to do great work.
Either way, the agency should not be getting the voice and work for free!
It sure is a gray area. You need to work something out with your Manager.
Have it in writing. If a spot you voiced airs outside of your cluster's stations, you should
be paid ______dollars, from the agency through station billing.
Or, at the very least, the station should be getting the fee. The station is already paying you to do production.
I believe the extra fee for having your commercials air on other stations is a good incentive for you to do great work.
Either way, the agency should not be getting the voice and work for free!
I have heard commercials from syndicated programming played back on one of those cornfield stations. It is entirely possible that, just like the situation I just described, someone is stealing and using your material. In once asked on another thread, "Who sends the invoice for playing the stolen ad?" And, is the company so large that they would just figure they owed the money to the cornfielders who sent the invoice?
Talent fees for out of house spots is one of the things I always investigate when interviewing for a gig. Most stations/companies have an internal policy regarding out of house spots and fees. Where I work the fee is set by the company (too low IMO) whereas other clusters I've worked the fee was up to the talent/producer and invoiced directly to the client, or through the station rep.
I don't agree that the company/station should get your talent fee. That's silly. You were paid to produce/voice for the spot to air on your stations, but not others. Don't get me started on local agencies using radio stations as their defacto production house. At my present gig and agency, any client really, gets one hour. When the hour is up they start to get charged studio time. I digress...
If I were you approach your OM before you do anything to get a ruling. Don't want to potentially lose a gig (or favor) by upsetting the apple cart over a disclaimer fee (can't be much even in a top 30). I'm sure the OM will counsel you accordingly. Where I work the producer's don't get a fee...where in other markets I've worked the producer was compensated whether his/her voice appeared on the spot or not. Producing is a talent, and should be compensated. Not as much as the VO but something. I worked one cluster where fees were broke down to 05 and 10sec tags. All depends on the company, cluster and local mgmt.
I don't agree that the company/station should get your talent fee. That's silly. You were paid to produce/voice for the spot to air on your stations, but not others. Don't get me started on local agencies using radio stations as their defacto production house. At my present gig and agency, any client really, gets one hour. When the hour is up they start to get charged studio time. I digress...
If I were you approach your OM before you do anything to get a ruling. Don't want to potentially lose a gig (or favor) by upsetting the apple cart over a disclaimer fee (can't be much even in a top 30). I'm sure the OM will counsel you accordingly. Where I work the producer's don't get a fee...where in other markets I've worked the producer was compensated whether his/her voice appeared on the spot or not. Producing is a talent, and should be compensated. Not as much as the VO but something. I worked one cluster where fees were broke down to 05 and 10sec tags. All depends on the company, cluster and local mgmt.
Yes, you should be getting paid. Best if the client pays you directly.
My last gig, nothing left the station without a fee. We, for the most part, set our own rates.
You don't mention what market you're in, so there's no throwing out a dollar amount here. If this is a long time station client and this has been their deal for a while, it may be hard for you to do anything about it at this time. What you can do, is lay the groundwork for future business.
At my last gig, we created a "Production Handbook" In it we laid out all of the things a sales person needed to do to get their spots/promos on the air including; deadlines, turnaround times, copy length, tips and talent/producer fees. Every new salesperson received a copy and we would meet with them to explain how everything worked. Management was on board and appreciated having everything laid out simply and clearly. There was never any question what the policy was and no one could claim they "didn't know." There was also very little quibbling over fees.
The thing to stress to your management is, if you control the creative, you control the buy. It is good for your station to be viewed as the one who's production is so good, they charge for it, and at a bargain compared to what an agency would charge.
Good luck.
My last gig, nothing left the station without a fee. We, for the most part, set our own rates.
You don't mention what market you're in, so there's no throwing out a dollar amount here. If this is a long time station client and this has been their deal for a while, it may be hard for you to do anything about it at this time. What you can do, is lay the groundwork for future business.
At my last gig, we created a "Production Handbook" In it we laid out all of the things a sales person needed to do to get their spots/promos on the air including; deadlines, turnaround times, copy length, tips and talent/producer fees. Every new salesperson received a copy and we would meet with them to explain how everything worked. Management was on board and appreciated having everything laid out simply and clearly. There was never any question what the policy was and no one could claim they "didn't know." There was also very little quibbling over fees.
The thing to stress to your management is, if you control the creative, you control the buy. It is good for your station to be viewed as the one who's production is so good, they charge for it, and at a bargain compared to what an agency would charge.
Good luck.
I've been in situations in markets where talent and production fees were the norm, where a salesperson would promise an advertiser marketwide production at no charge, to "control the account." Before long, I was doing all the account's production for all their distant markets, on company time, for free. The salesperson saw it as "controlling the account." I saw it as the account getting out of control. If I were older and wiser at the time, I would have asked the salesperson how much of the sales commission going to me is it worth to control the account.
That's what I would advise. The station the agency sends it to can do the disclaimer. I occasionally let things out of our cluster without payment but make it crystal clear it's a one-time only deal.pellmell said:
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